Bowen Yang is exiting ‘Saturday Night Live’
“Saturday Night Live” fan favorite Bowen Yang announced on Instagram that he is leaving the show after tonight’s episode hosted by his “Wicked” co-star Ariana Grande.
“I loved working at SNL and, most of all, I loved the people,” he wrote.
Yang then expressed his gratitude to the show and everyone involved.
“I’m grateful for every minute of my time there,” he said.
“Thanks to Ari for sending me off in the dreamiest way I could imagine,” he later added.
The comedian joined the series as a writer in 2018 during its 44th season. He was added to the cast in 2019, becoming the series’ first Asian actor.
He quickly became one of the stars of the series, appearing in several sketches per episode. Her popular impersonations included Rep. George Santos, photographer Fran Lebowitz, and “Brat” artist Charli XCX. He also cosplayed as viral pygmy hippo Moo Deng and the iceberg that sank the Titanic.
“SNL” airs on NBC, a division of NBCUniversal, which is also the parent company of NBC News.
In a promo for Saturday’s episode posted on social media Thursday, Yang appears alongside musical artist Cher and host Ariana Grande, with whom he worked on “Wicked.”
“SNL” marked a milestone earlier this year with a star-studded 50th anniversary special, which aired on NBC and Peacock in February.
The Lorne Michaels-led sketch comedy series recently underwent another routine shake-up, with several cast members, including Heidi Gardner, Ego Nwodim, Devon Walker, Michael Longfellow and Emil Wakim, leaving earlier this year.
Yang, who co-hosts a popular podcast called “Las Culturistas” with comedian and actor Matt Rogers, said in September that he had spoken to Michaels about possibly leaving, but decided against it.
“I’ve always gone with the instinct: Do I have more to do? And I feel like I do,” Yang said in an interview with People magazine published in September, when asked about Season 51. “Even Lorne and I talked about it, and Lorne was like, ‘You have more to do,’ and that means a lot, because I even confessed to him. I was like, ‘I feel like the audience maybe fed up with me.’ And he said to me, “That’s not true. You still have a lot to do. I need you.’
At this year’s Emmy Awards, which took place in September, Michaels spoke about the recent casting changes.
“The show has always appealed to people of different ages and different generations, and this is how it renews itself,” Michaels told Entertainment Tonight in a red carpet interview. “It’s always hard when people leave, but there’s a time for that and our audience has always stayed relatively young and even more so now with TikTok, and change is a good thing. And the people we’re bringing in really excite me.”
