This story originally appeared on Them.
When Bowen Yang announced that he would be leaving Saturday Night Live last year, many could already feel that the energy of the show would be different. To fans, he was a standout performer, racking up four Primetime Emmy nominations for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series during his tenure. But as he expressed in a new interview, Yang never felt as important to the show as he might have seemed from the outside.
“I feel like I was kind of resolute the season before about leaving and there was just a lot of uncertainty about what the show would look like after season 50,” he said to I Love LA creator Rachel Sennott while appearing in Variety’s Actors on Actors series. “I was like, ‘I think the show is in a great place without me.’ I never felt like I was that central to it to be honest.”
Bowen Yang says he left "SNL" because he "never felt central" to the show.
"I never played the dad or the straight-man teacher. I was always kind of there as the seasoning."
Stream the full #ActorsOnActors episode now on the CNN app: https://t.co/jrgGNUUacv pic.twitter.com/20bCJrP3UK
— Variety (@Variety) June 8, 2026
When Sennott said she disagreed with him, Yang continued on by saying that he was limited to certain roles. “I feel like there was a weird utility to me,” he said. “I never played like the dad or the straight man teacher. I was always there as the seasoning.”
Yang continued, saying that while he felt “lucky” to have a “steady job in comedy,” he also felt like it was the right time to exit. Yang departed after the first half of season 51, with his final appearance on Ariana Grande’s December 20, 2025 episode. He said that he was set to leave at the end of 50 but, due to high cast turnover and lots of new faces, SNL creator Lorne Michaels reached out to him personally and asked him to come back to help with stability.
“He was just like ‘Listen, you should come back. These are the people I’ve hired, it’s a lot of new kids. And the turnover is there. A lot of people left, a lot of people are coming in. You should be there to set an example for them, at least in the first half of the season,’” Yang recalled.
He continued, “It was the first time I felt, in my bones, someone who built this thing that made so many things possible for me, and for so many people, being like, ‘I need you.’ And I’m not going to turn that down.”
In the transition from season 50 to season 51, featured players Michael Longfellow, Devon Walker, and Emil Wakim were all given the boot, as well as main cast member Heidi Gardner. Shortly after Gardner’s exit was announced, Ego Nwodim announced she would be leaving as well.
Aside from SNL, Yang still has a major comedy career, with roles in both Wicked and Wicked: For Good and his podcast Las Culturistas creating viral moments seemingly every week.
