Saturday Night Live fans are speculating that cast member Bowen Yang may be leaving the show following its season 50 finale.
Yang, 34, appeared bereft while he hugged castmate Sarah Sherman during the closing ‘Goodnights’ segment on Saturday, May 17, as SNL’s stars gathered on stage to close the season. Yang also looked emotional while embracing several other cast members before the network feed cut away for a commercial mid-segment. (The full “Goodnights” were later posted via X.)
“If Bowen is leaving I won’t be shocked,” one X user wrote, with another asking, “Um. is bowen also leaving?????”
“If Bowen’s actually leaving idk how to feel,” an SNL fan admitted. “On one hand, I will always miss him on the show. On the other hand, he’s had one of the most successful SNL careers of this era and it would be an appropriate time if he wants to pursue other things (we all know how it was with Wicked)”
“It looked like Bowen was having long heartfelt hugs with everyone so he’s my only guess to be leaving. Would explain some of the sketches they did for him [tonight],” a viewer theorized.
Yang was featured quite prominently in Saturday’s SNL season 50 finale, including in a sequel to the classic “Bowen’s Straight” sketch where he romanced guest host Scarlett Johansson.
Yang told People in April that he’d started envisioning what his career would be like once he left Saturday Night Live “at some point.”
“SNL, it’s just this moving, living, breathing thing,” he said. “Especially after the 50th, I’m seeing what life after the show is like and how beautiful it is, and how so many people, no matter how long they were at the show, are just with their families and loving their lives and not letting the years take away any of that experience for them.”
Bowen Yang attends ‘SNL50: The Homecoming Concert’ Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images
While no exits were confirmed on air in Saturday’s finale, rumors swirled leading up to the episode that several cast members could be leaving the show.
‘Weekend Update’ co-anchor Michael Che made light of his own future on Saturday Night Live this past February during a standup comedy performance at the University of Rochester, according to Deadline.
“This is my last season,” he told fans. “I’m not coming back, don’t worry. I’m done, it’s over for me. It’s been so much fun. It’s a little emotional, it’s bittersweet.”
Heidi Gardner has been a mainstay on the sketch comedy series since 2017 when she joined as a featured player. She quickly became a fan favorite and joined the repertory cast in 2019.
The Shrinking star admitted on the “Joy” podcast with Craig Ferguson in February that it was becoming more difficult for her to come up with sketch ideas in her eighth season on SNL.
“I will say the only thing that I’ve started to feel a little bit is just sketch fatigue, or idea fatigue. At this point, after doing Groundlings and SNL for so long, I’m like, ‘I’ve written a lot of sketches,’” she acknowledged. “You just get scared and it does happen some weeks where I’m like, ‘I do not have an idea for a sketch, a game, or a character.’ And then you know, luckily we have amazing writers at the show that will be like, ‘But I have an idea for you.’”
Mikey Day joined Saturday Night Live as a writer in 2013, before becoming a featured player on air in 2016. He was promoted to the repertory cast in 2018. The comedian has parlayed his success on SNL into jobs outside the NBC show, including hosting Netflix game show Is It Cake? and writing on Robot Chicken.
When asked by Deadline in February about staying on the show after season 50, Day replied, “Who knows what the future will bring?”
Ego Nwodim, who was hired ahead of SNL’s 44th season in 2018, hinted at a potential cast shakeup in an interview with Deadline ahead of the 50th anniversary special in February.
“All throughout the season, I feel like we anticipated what the 50th was going to be. We didn’t know,” she recalled. “I called it an SNL wedding, [but a] birthday is obviously more fitting. It felt like we were having a wedding, and it was like we’re building up to this wedding.”
The comedian went on, “We had these episodes leading up to the actual 50th celebration, but all the while just knowing, ‘Okay, we’re working toward this thing, and that is going to be such a huge moment.’ You could just feel it in the air.”
Asked about whether she planned to bow out after season 50, Nwodim hinted, “We like to keep things mysterious around here. That’s part of the allure of SNL, we don’t know what’s going to happen week to week, let alone in the fall, so who knows.”
Colin Jost, Michael Che and Scarlett Johansson on ‘SNL’ Season 50 Finale Courtesy NBC / Courtesy X
Elsewhere in Saturday’s finale, Johansson got her long-awaited revenge on husband Colin Jost’s ‘Weekend Update’ co-anchor Che for jokingly comparing her private parts to roast beef in a December 2024 episode.
Jost then sweetly joined his wife on stage during the “Goodnights” segment to present her with a bouquet of flowers and share a kiss.
Saturday Night Live will kick off season 51 on NBC this fall.
