Bowen Yang’s final ‘Saturday Night Live’ exit
“SNL” cast member Bowen Yang announced he’s leaving the show in the middle of the 51st season, a crowd cheered his name after his last show.
Bowen Yang is sitting down for his “SNL” exit interview.
The “Wicked” star, 35, opened up on the Jan. 7 episode of his “Las Culturistas” podcast with Matt Rogers about his decision to leave “Saturday Night Live” after seven seasons.
“This is honestly what’s behind it: It’s time,” Yang said on the podcast. “You would do seven seasons, and then you would scoot.”
He continued, “COVID and the current media landscape, the current entertainment ecosystem, is so turbulent that people have completely valid reasons for staying longer, or, in a lot of cases, don’t have the privilege of staying on as long as they would like to. I have this very beautiful thing where I get to say that I stayed on exactly as long as I wanted to.”
But Yang revealed he almost left the show earlier, noting he was “unsure about going back” for another season over the summer hiatus. In the end, though, he’s “so glad” he returned for the fall.
Yang, who joined the “SNL” cast in 2019, confirmed his exit on Dec. 20 ahead of the show’s Christmas episode. This allowed the “SNL” winter finale to serve as a send-off for Yang. The episode included a meta sketch where Yang played an airport employee on his last shift. In it, his character gets emotional about saying goodbye to his job and the people he has worked with, giving Yang an opportunity to say goodbye to “SNL.” He was joined on the episode by musical guest Cher and host Ariana Grande, his “Wicked” costar.
On “Las Culturistas,” Yang revealed that up until the episode began that Saturday night, he was unsure whether his farewell sketch would make it to air or whether it would be cut at the last minute. But Yang got emotional as he recalled “sobbing” when he read a line in the sketch about loving everyone he has worked with, as this reflects his experience on “SNL.”
“I cried on Wednesday at the read-through because I was telling the truth, and because there are no other occasions for someone to say that at that place, because we have to be funny and ironic,” he said.
Yang did say, though, that he wished more members of the cast could have participated in his farewell sketch. He also revealed the sketch was supposed to play out differently: The original plan was for it to be more comedic, with a greater emphasis on Yang’s eggnog machine being on the fritz and spraying people. Before the show, though, “SNL” creator Lorne Michaels came up to Yang and said, “I think it’s better if it’s just you guys and you just play into the emotion of it.”
After officially departing the show, Yang said on the podcast that he is feeling “so good,” though he drew a comparison to the way the presidency ages a person rapidly.
“I’ve experienced the full spectrum of things [on ‘SNL’],” he explained. “Working there is completely dysregulating emotionally. Either you are soaring or you’re completely in the dumps.”
Yang also looked back on an emotional moment he shared with Amy Poehler about life after “SNL” earlier on in Season 51, when she hosted.
“[She] puts a hand on my shoulder, looks into my eyes, and goes, ‘We’re all waiting for you on the other side,'” he recalled. “I was like, ‘This is crazy.’ … It does feel like I’ve died.”
Yang previously reflected, in his Instagram post announcing his “SNL” departure, that “at a time when many things in the world started to seem futile,” working on the show “taught me the value in showing up anyway when people make it worthwhile.”
“SNL” will return for its first episode of 2026 on Jan. 17 with host Finn Wolfhard.
