{"id":225579,"date":"2026-01-09T20:37:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T20:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/225579\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T20:37:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T20:37:10","slug":"bowen-yang-explains-why-he-decided-to-leave-saturday-night-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/225579\/","title":{"rendered":"Bowen Yang explains why he decided to leave Saturday Night Live"},"content":{"rendered":"
Bowen\u2019s last appearance on SNL came on December 20, 2025, in which he starred in an emotional sketch with his Wicked: For Good co-star Ariana Grande and Cher.<\/p>\n
His final appearance featured an emotional sketch with Ariana Grande (left) and Cher on December 20, 2025. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
After signing off from the show, Bowen said he was \u201cgrateful for every minute\u201d he spent on SNL in a heartfelt farewell message.<\/p>\n
In a statement posted on Instagram, Bowen wrote: \u201cI loved working on SNL, and most of all I loved the people.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m 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\u2019t, which is the besssst.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bowen expressed gratitude \u201cto every single person who showed up there\u201d, including friends, audiences and hosts.<\/p>\n
He wrote: \u201cThank you to every cast member for making me laugh and cry. Thank you to Ari for sending me off in the dreamiest way I could imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bowen added: \u201cThank you to Lorne [Michaels] 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\u2019t believe I was ever included in that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe show doesn\u2019t go on because it\u2019s ready, but s***, I hope I am.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bowen\u2019s last appearance on SNL came on December 20, 2025, in which he starred in an emotional sketch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[134795,48901,156,37119,793,692,12514,13840,4960,111,139,2551,69,1534,2044,61,4276,134796],"class_list":["post-225579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-bowen","tag-decided","tag-entertainment","tag-explains","tag-felt","tag-he","tag-leave","tag-like","tag-live","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-night","tag-nz","tag-saturday","tag-time","tag-to","tag-why","tag-yang"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}