At the end of 2025, Saturday Night Live said goodbye to yet another seasoned cast member – Bowen Yang. News of the comedian’s departure was reported in late December and, shortly after, Yang confirmed the reports himself with a heartwarming social media post. He signed off for the final time during SNL’s latest Christmas episode, during which he received his flowers. Now that some time has passed, Yang is opening up about his decision to leave the network TV institution along with the highs and lows of working there.
Yang opened up about his SNL departure during the latest episode of his Las Culturistas Podcast, which he co-hosts with Matt Rogers. As shared early in the episode, Rogers had been eager to discuss this topic with his buddy and media cohort. Yang, who also said he felt “so good” since making his last appearance as an active cast member at Studio 8H. While sharing his reasoning for his exit, the Wedding Banquet star named several external variables that cropped up during his tenure:
This is honestly what’s behind it. It's time, like you would do seven seasons and then you would scoot, and then like COVID and the current media landscape, the currententertainment 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. Maybe I'm sure, and I've said this before, I was maybe unsure about going back in the summer, and I'm so glad I did.
Bowen Yang joined Saturday Night Live as a staff writer in 2018 during the show’s 44th season and, in 2019, he became a featured player. His tenure on the show ended on a high note, as his final episode featured his friend and Wicked co-star, Ariana Grande, as host and Cher as the musical guest. Grande and Cher embraced Bowen on stage during the “Delta Lounge” sketch, as he (while still in character) bid farewell. As much as Yang expressed how much he enjoyed the show, he also brought up some more challenging factors:
Working there is just making peace with the fact that like, things are completely out of your control, down to like the audience response to a joke, you know, like that is — I think having that and like going into it, like down to like 12:55 a.m. not being sure if that sketch was going to go to air. I was like, there's a million reasons why I could get cut. Nothing is guaranteed. Like that is sort of in a nutshell, it kind of is perfectly illustrative of what that job is, and it was resonant all the way through to the end.
Even the biggest stars SNL has ever produced have talked about just how challenging the process of working on the show can be. Make no mistake, though, as Yang also described himself as “grateful” for the experience. Still, he’s fully cognizant of some of the “struggles” that can come with it:
You come in, and there is like a shared experience of being at SNL, but then ultimately, it comes down to like there's like a collectivism there, but there's an individualism in terms of like everyone is on their own journey there. Yeah, everyone has a different like length of their tenure [and] completely different struggles. It is like what the experience of living is, which is like, it is suffering to the point of having to arrive at a nihilism and then you create your own meaning from there. That is what the job is.
Prior to Yang sharing these comments, there were reports regarding his reason for deciding to leave SNL. An insider alleged that the “grueling schedule” of working on the sketch comedy show was starting to weigh on Yang and that he was getting to a point at which he was “not happy.” Series creator Lorne Michaels also reportedly offered Yang a considerable amount of money to appear during the first half of Season 51.
Regardless of what motivated his departure, Bowen Yang seems content with his decision and is excited to focus on other endeavors, like expanding his podcast with Rogers. He’s also received tributes from series veterans like Aidy Bryant and Kenan Thompson. Marcello Hernández also lauded Yang as a “guy who put up numbers” and generated great laughs. Yang’s Saturday Night Live legacy is sure to live on, and those who want to revisit his best sketches can stream classic episodes with a Peacock subscription.
