And They’re Out: Pete Davidson, Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant And Kyle Mooney Reportedly Exit ‘Saturday Night Live’ After This Week
Saturday Night Live is thinning out the cast.
Pete Davidson, Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant and Kyle Mooney are all reportedly leaving after the show’s season finale, airing Saturday. Bryant and McKinnon joined the show in 2012, Mooney in 2013 and Davidson has been a cast member since 2014.
Davidson’s departure is probably the least surprising: he’s become a breakout star on and off-screen. He’s co-writing and starring in The King of Staten Island on the big screen, and co-creating and starring alongside Edie Falco in Bupkis, which recently landed a straight-to-series order at Peacock, all the while having a high-profile relationship with Kim Kardashian.
Creator Lorne Michaels told the trades that he was expecting this year to be a “year of change” for the show.
According to Deadline, there may be a big group goodbye, featuring all four the departees, at the end of Saturday’s episode, hosted by Natasha Lyonne.
This is SNL’s 47th season, and the show is sporting its largest ever cast, with 21 stars. Not counting the newly-departing players, cast members who have been on the show for eight seasons or more include Michael Che, Colin Jost, Cecily Strong and Kenan Thompson, who is the longest-tenured cast member in the show’s history.
Che speculated he might leave, but on the May 14th episode joked that he was withdrawing his resignation from consideration because the “wrong number” was drawn in the 86 Mega Millions Dollar jackpot.
Che will continue as host of Weekend Update as well as pursuing side projects: the second season of the HBO Max original comedy sketch show That Damn Michael Che will debut on Thursday, May 26 with six new episodes.
Last summer, Beck Bennett was the only major departure, along with featured player Lauren Holt.