Saturday Night Live is mere hours away from making its return to the 2024 TV schedule to kick off its milestone 50th season with some amazing upcoming hosts and musical guests. We’re all excited to see what’s in store for the big anniversary, including Maya Rudolph’s return as Kamala Harris and what madness is going to come from Michael Che and Colin Jost’s joke swaps, but there’s one lingering situation from the off-season that fans just can’t get out of their heads. Bowen Yang addressed his previous comments about an SNL host who made multiple cast members cry and provided more context for the situation.
Fans were dying to know who Bowen Yang was talking about when he went on Watch What Happens Live and was asked about mean SNL hosts. Saturday Night Live alums David Spade and Dana Carvey talked to Yang about that moment on the Fly on the Wall podcast, with Carvey pointing out how scary SNL can be and that some people deal with stress by lashing out. Yang agreed the high-pressure atmosphere definitely contributed to the cast’s emotional reaction, saying:
Imagine you stay up until 4 a.m. writing a sketch and then the host is like, ‘I fucking hate this.’ Your nerves are frayed, you’re going to have some weird, bizarre emotional response.
Writing for public consumption on any level requires some vulnerability — Bowen Yang has joked that he is “calloused all around my body” after having so many sketches rejected — so yes, even in the best of atmospheres it would be tough to be so harshly dismissed. Add to that a lack of sleep, and I’d be surprised if this situation didn’t happen more than just the once.
Dana Carvey called Bowen Yang’s admission “pretty benign,” especially since he didn’t name the Saturday Night Live host in question, and it turns out the position the Fire Island star was put in on Andy Cohen’s show is a pretty typical one for SNL cast members.
David Spade said people are constantly asking who was their favorite host, the worst, the funniest, etc., and he said everyone gets in trouble for divulging such information because any answer they give is an instant headline.
Bowen Yang is no stranger to the ins and outs of Lorne Michaels’ sketch comedy, having been with the show for five years now. He joined SNL in 2018, becoming the first Chinese-American cast member. In August on Watch What Happens Live, Yang was asked about the worst host behavior he had witnessed, to which he replied:
This man who, this person, this host made multiple cast members cry on Wednesday during the, before the table-read, because he hated the ideas.
SNL has an infamously brutal schedule, which is why the comedians don’t always stay very long and why the cast members who are/were there the longest are so impressive. There’s no doubt emotions run high, but I do hope that the behavior of whatever host Bowen Yang was referencing is the exception and not the rule to the writers’ experience.
For better or worse, we’ve got a whole new slew of celebs hitting the stage for Season 50, starting with a very enthusiastic Jean Smart. so tune in at 11:30 p.m. ET Saturday, September 28 for the season premiere on NBC and streaming with a Peacock subscription.