The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Bowen Yang, coming off a huge year or two of\u00a0projects, will depart Saturday Night Live<\/em> mid-season after tonight’s episode hosted by his Wicked<\/em> pal,\u00a0Ariana Grande.<\/p>\nHe joined the show as a writer in 2018, became a featured player the following season and was promoted to the main cast two seasons after that. Yang was a fan favourite, with five Emmy nominations over the years.<\/p>\n
An SNL<\/em> representative wouldn\u2019t comment Friday on Yang\u2019s departure from the New York City-based show. His representatives didn\u2019t respond to email requests for comment.<\/p>\nIn an Instagram post Saturday, Yang wrote: \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mid-season departures from SNL<\/em> have happened before. Cecily Strong did it in December 2022.<\/p>\nYang, 35, appeared with Grande and musical guest Cher in promos for Saturday\u2019s show, going giddy with Grande after a face slap from the iconic If I Could Turn Back Time<\/em> singer, who won a best-actress Oscar in 1988 for her role in Moonstruck<\/em>.<\/p>\nWord of Yang\u2019s departure came after a major exodus of cast members last summer ahead of the Oct. 4 start of Season 51. They included\u00a0Ego Nwodim, Heidi Gardner, Michael Longfellow, Devon Walker, Emil Wakim and John Higgins.<\/p>\n
Not the 1st time Yang’s mentioned leaving<\/h2>\n
Previously, Yang publicly discussed the idea of leaving, telling People magazine in September that he had mulled it over with Lorne Michaels, Toronto-born creator of the NBC sketch comedy show. Yang got a vote of confidence from Michaels and decided to stay at that time.<\/p>\n
Yang co-hosts the pop culture podcast Las Culturistas<\/em> with his friend and fellow comedian Matt Rogers. Yang was in Wicked<\/em> and Wicked: For Good<\/em> and co-starred in The Wedding Banquet<\/em> this year.<\/p>\nThe son of Chinese immigrants, Yang was born in Australia and raised in Canada. He holds American and Canadian citizenships. <\/p>\n
Yang was Esquire\u2019s recent cover star. In an Oct. 28 interview accompanying his cover shoot, he told the magazine: \u201cThere\u2019s an idea that all of what I do is queer and Asian, which I don\u2019t think is true. I get sick of people reducing the work I do on the show to those identifiers.\u201d <\/p>\n
Work, he said, \u201cis not the most meaningful thing for me anymore. The things I like are spending time with friends, working every now and then, not being caged by it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.cbc.ca \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results. Bowen Yang, coming off a huge year or two of\u00a0projects, will depart Saturday Night Live mid-season after tonight’s episode hosted by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2221065,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2221064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Bowen-Yang-to-depart-Saturday-Night-Live-mid-season.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2221064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2221064"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2221064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2221066,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2221064\/revisions\/2221066"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2221065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2221064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2221064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2221064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}