{"id":359655,"date":"2025-12-20T08:52:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T08:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/359655\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T08:52:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T08:52:13","slug":"bowen-yang-to-leave-saturday-night-live-after-eight-seasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/359655\/","title":{"rendered":"Bowen Yang to leave ‘Saturday Night Live’ after eight seasons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bowen Yang<\/a>, a fan-favorite cast member of \u201cSaturday Night Live,\u201d is expected to leave the series after this week\u2019s episode. Representatives for Yang and \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d did not comment on the move Friday. There has been recent speculation about whether he would finish the current season of the show. He has appeared on the show since Season 45 after a year of working on the writing staff.<\/p>\n

Yang took on a variety of roles in the NBC sketch comedy series, including impersonating Vice President J.D. Vance, Fran Lebowitz and pygmy hippopotamus Moo Deng<\/a>. Yang received his fifth Emmy nomination for his work on \u201cSNL\u2019s\u201d historic 50th season.<\/p>\n

Yang is expected to appear in Saturday\u2019s episode, hosted by his \u201cWicked\u201d co-star and friend Ariana Grande with musical guest Cher.<\/p>\n

Outside of \u201cSNL,\u201d Yang has appeared in several other projects recently. He co-hosts the popular podcast \u201cLas Culturistas,\u201d with fellow comedian Matt Rogers, and their seminal Las Culturistas Culture Awards was televised for the first time this year, airing on Bravo and streaming on Peacock. Yang also appeared in the \u201cWicked\u201d film and its recent sequel, \u201cWicked: For Good,\u201d and has starred in several other feature films, including \u201cThe Wedding Banquet,\u201d \u201cFire Island\u201d and \u201cDicks the Musical.\u201d<\/p>\n

In early December, Yang confirmed he and Rogers would be co-writing and starring in an untitled comedy for Searchlight Pictures<\/a>. The movie will reportedly follow two Americans who fly across the world to try to get into the exclusive Berghain nightclub in Berlin. <\/p>\n

Yang is not the first \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d cast member to leave midseason \u2014 he joins the company of past \u201cSNL\u201d greats like Cecily Strong, Molly Shannon, Amy Poehler and a handful of others who exited the show outside of the traditional period for departures while the show is on summer hiatus. <\/p>\n

Prior to the start of Season 51, NBC and executive producer Lorne Michaels made some major cast changes, adding five featured players after a series of departures. Ego Nwodim<\/a>, Heidi Gardner, Michael Longfellow, Devon Walker and Emil Wakim exited the series before the season premiere in October. <\/p>\n

Tommy Brennan, Jeremy Culhane, Ben Marshall, Kam Patterson and Veronika Slowikowska joined the cast for the current season. Marshall was previously on the \u201cSNL\u201d writing staff and is known for his on-camera appearances as a part of the Please Don\u2019t Destroy comedy trio.<\/p>\n

The 51st season of \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d will continue in early 2026 and run through the end of the television season in May. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bowen Yang, a fan-favorite cast member of \u201cSaturday Night Live,\u201d is expected to leave the series after this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[81656,12395,177717,22613,93404,88,31927,177718,45521,12015,5190,562,23640,12016,177716,2394],"class_list":{"0":"post-359655","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-ben-marshall","9":"tag-bowen-yang","10":"tag-current-season","11":"tag-departure","12":"tag-ego-nwodim","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-episode","15":"tag-fan-favorite-cast-member","16":"tag-molly-shannon","17":"tag-saturday-night-live","18":"tag-season","19":"tag-series","20":"tag-show","21":"tag-snl","22":"tag-writing-staff","23":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}