SNL's season 51 shake-up
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Every 'Saturday Night Live' Cast Member Leaving the Show Ahead of Season
51 (Updating)
Lorne Michaels says he's feeling "pressure to reinvent this season"
after the show's landmark 50th year.
Katie Atkinson
Billboard.com
8/28/2025
Ahead of the season 51 premiere of Saturday Night Live on Oct. 4, Lorne Michaels confirmed in an interview that a few familiar faces will not
return to the cast this fall -- and those exits are starting to be
announced one by one.
When asked by Puck in an interview published Aug. 22 if he planned to
"shake things up" for the 2025-26 season, the SNL creator and producer replied, "Yes," adding that he was feeling the "pressure to reinvent
this season" after mostly keeping the cast intact from season 49 into
the show's landmark 50th year.
"I wanted people coming back and being part of [the 50th season],"
Michaels told Puck. "So when Kate [McKinnon] hosted, Kristen [Wiig] and
Maya [Rudolph] came back for it. And that meant there couldn't be those
kind of disruptions or anything that was going to take the focus off
[the 50th season]."
The 2024-25 season 50 cast included 17 people in total: 14 full-time
cast members and three featured players. The longest-running cast
members currently on Saturday Night Live are led by Kenan Thompson, who started on the show in 2003 and holds the record for the longest-tenured
SNL castmate of all time. Other vets in the mix: Weekend Update
co-anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che, who both joined the cast in 2014;
Mikey Day (2016); Heidi Gardner (2017); Ego Nwodim (2018); and Chloe
Fineman and Bowen Yang (both 2019).
But who won't be back when the sketch comedy show returns to Studio 8H
in October? Below, find the full list of cast members exiting Saturday
Night Live ahead of season 51.
Devon Walker
On Aug. 26, Walker confirmed his exit from the show with an Instagram
post captioned "me and baby broke up."
He expounded on his exit in a note posted to Instagram with the cheeky
title "wait..did he quit or did he get fired?," writing in part: "To me,
jobs in this industry feel like a bunch of little marriages. Some of em
last for a long time if we're lucky, but most of them are fleeting.
Permanent until they're not. That's the deal. You know what it is it
when you sign up. Me and the show did three years together, and
sometimes it was really cool. Sometimes it was toxic as hell. But we did
what we made the most of what it was, even amidst all of the
dysfunction. We made a f---ed up lil family."
Emil Wakim
Emil Wakim was one of three featured players added for season 50
(alongside Ashley Padilla and Jane Wickline), so he only spent one
season as part of the SNL cast.
Wakim announced the news Aug. 27 on Instagram, writing in part: "i won't
be returning to snl next year. it was a gut punch of a call to get but
i'm so grateful for my time there. i was at six flags celebrating my
friends 36th birthday and went on a really emotional walk through bugs
bunny park and stared out across daffy duck lake thinking about life.
every time i scanned into the building i would think how insane it is to
get to work there. it was the most terrifying, thrilling, and rewarding experience of my life and i will miss it dearly and all the brilliant
people that work there that made it feel like a home. thank u to lorne
for taking a chance on me and changing my life."
Michael Longfellow
Michael Longfellow joined the cast in 2022 for season 48 as a featured
player and was promoted to the cast for season 50 -- his final year on
the show.
Deadline broke the news on Aug. 28, and Longfellow followed with an
Instagram post, writing in part: "Will not be returning for a 4th season
at SNL. Wish I was but, so it goes. It was the best three years of my
life so far. I feel nothing but gratitude for the experience and
everyone there. Lorne, you gave me the greatest job in the world and
changed my life. You even put my mom on TV. Thank you doesn't begin to
cover it, but thank you."
Heidi Gardner
Heidi Gardner is the longest-running cast member to exit so far, joining
the show in 2017 as a featured player on season 43. She was promoted to full-time cast two years later, in 2019, spending eight seasons on the
show.
Like Longfellow, the news of Gardner's exit did not come from the comic herself: Vulture
(www.vulture.com/article/heidi-gardner-leaving-snl.html) was the first
to report the news on Aug. 28.
===
The 'Saturday Night Live' cast is being shaken up. Who is leaving, and
why?
Vivian Ho
The Washington Post
Published Aug 29, 2025
Several "Saturday Night Live" cast members and at least one writer are
leaving the show - in what entertainment outlets are describing as an "earthquake" or "bloodbath."
Four of the 17 cast members from Season 50 are leaving, in the largest
exodus of cast members since 2022, when eight people left ahead of
Season 48. While the exact reasons for the departures are not clear,
several of the exiting cast members have suggested it was not their
choice to go.
Creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels told Puck News last week
that he would be making changes before the start of the 51st season on
Oct. 4. Asked whether he was going to "shake things up" and whether he
felt "pressure to reinvent" the coming season, he said yes, adding that
he had wanted to avoid any "disruptions" during the 50th season, which involved a half-century anniversary special and an election.
Michaels also confirmed that one cast member is definitely staying -
James Austin Johnson will continue to portray President Donald Trump.
Here are the cast and crew members leaving so far and what they have
said about their departures.
1. Devon Walker
Stand-up comic Devon Walker, who played characters including Republican
Sen. Tim Scott, New York Mayor Eric Adams and NBA star Draymond Green,
joined the cast in Season 48 and became a repertory player in Season 50.
In a tongue-in-cheek Instagram post titled "me and baby broke up,"
Walker announced his departure, sharing a screenshot of a note titled:
"wait ... did he quit or did he get fired?"
In his post, he likened jobs in the industry to "a bunch of little
marriages," most of which are "fleeting."
"Me and the show did three years together, and sometimes it was really
cool," Walker wrote. "Sometimes it was toxic as hell. But ... we made
the most of what it was, even amidst all of the dysfunction."
2. Michael Longfellow
Michael Longfellow, who announced his departure on Thursday, hinted that
he was not leaving on his own accord, posting that he wished he was
returning for his fourth season with the show, "but, so it goes."
"It was the best three years of my life so far," Longfellow said in a
post on Instagram. "I feel nothing but gratitude for the experience and everyone there."
Longfellow joined the cast in Season 48 and became a repertory player in Season 50, playing characters including "Goth kid on vacation" and a
"resident boyfriend" discussing weaponized incompetence on Weekend
Update.
3. Heidi Gardner
Longtime cast member Heidi Gardner will not be returning for Season 51, according to Variety and Rolling Stone. Representatives for Gardner did
not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Gardner joined the show in 2017 and was the longest-running female
member of last year's cast, playing characters such as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem and Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator during Trump's first term.
4. Emil Wakim
Emil Wakim, the show's first Lebanese American cast member, played
memorable characters such as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
during a skit about Trump's trip to the Middle East and "guy who looks
like Luigi Mangione" in a sketch about the man charged with fatally
shooting United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Wakim, who joined the cast for Season 50, indicated in the social media announcement of his departure that he had been let go, calling it "a gut
punch of a call to get."
He described his time with the show as "the most terrifying, thrilling,
and rewarding experience" of his life, adding that he will "miss it
dearly and all the brilliant people that work there that made it feel
like home."
5. Celeste Yim (Writer)
Celeste Yim, the show's first openly transgender writer, said Monday
that after five seasons, Season 50 would be their last.
"I always felt honored to be working within the long tradition of queer writing at the show. ... I feel so powerless to protect trans people in
the world but writing connects us and makes us permanent, so it's what I
will continue to do," Yim wrote.
They added that the job was "grueling and I slept in my office every
week" and that "I got yelled at by random famous men ... BUT I loved it
and I laughed every day."
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