Saturday Night Live: Bowen Yang shares message ahead of exit
Yesterday, the news was made official that Bowen Yang will be departing Saturday Night Live over the course of tonight’s Christmas episode. Is the news sad? Absolutely. Not only are we talking here about one of the series’ best cast members, but we had also hoped that he would find a way to be there through the end of the season. Not having that happen is absolutely a bummer.
Yet, it also makes sense for Bowen now to depart. He has become a bigger star in the world of movies and podcasts, and in a way, him staying this long allowed the series to stabilize after some other cast exits over the summer.
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In a post on Instagram, Yang shared a heartfelt tribute to everyone who works on the show, and also what he learned about himself in the process.
i loved working at SNL, and most of all i loved the people. i was there at a time when many things in the world started to seem futile, but working at 30 rock taught me the value in showing up anyway when people make it worthwhile.
i’m grateful for every minute of my time there. i learned about myself (bad with wigs). i learned about others (generous, vulnerable, hot). i learned that human error can be nothing but correct. i learned that comedy is mostly logistics and that it will usually fail until it doesn’t, which is the besssst.
thank you to every single person who showed up there: friends and coworkers and audiences and hosts. thank you celeste, sudi, will, alison, julio, fran, drez, bulla, marty, john, ben, jimmy, ceara, deetch, jake, asha, jack, auguste, tucker, kent, streeter, james, alex, jasmine, gary, and billy for writing with me. thank you to every cast member for making me laugh and cry. to liz and don. tom, jodi, louie, eamon. gena, chris, eddie. the crews, the pages. and to audrey, jameson, cassandra and chris for the fastest, funnest quick-changes in all of showbiz. thank you to ari for sending me off in the dreamiest way i could imagine.
thank you to lorne for the job. for the standard. and for bringing everyone at work together. they all care deeply about people in the room, any room, enjoying themselves. i can’t believe i was ever included in that.
the show doesn’t go on because it’s ready, but —-, i hope i am.
Having Ariana Grande host the series tonight makes a lot of sense just because of her history working with him on the Wicked films, and he has spoken about his affection for musical guest Cher over the years. In a way, you can argue that the stars aligned perfectly for this to be his final episode. Hopefully we do get a chance to see a few iconic characters and sketches from him along the way.
Related – Be sure to see more on why this is the time for Bowen to exit
What are you going to miss about Bowen Yang on Saturday Night Live?
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