“Two of Saturday Night Live ‘s most beloved stars have broken their silence over their shock exits amid the long-running show’s firing bloodbath and mass cast exodus.”, — write: www.dailymail.co.uk
Prior to SNL’s landmark 51st season airing earlier this month with Bad Bunny as host, the program announced several high-profile cast departures, including Heidi Gardner, who left after eight years, Ego Nwodim, Devon Walker and Michael Longfellow.
While appearing on Nwodim’s Thanks Dad podcast, Gardner, 42, tearfully opened up about her time on the show as she admitted SNL was a difficult environment.
‘I am so honored that we worked so hard there, and then we also worked on our friendship so hard, which wasn’t hard, by the way,’ Gardner said. ‘I just mean… we’re humans, so we have egos, we want things for ourselves, we want to succeed, and there weren’t a lot of times when we were able to succeed in the way we wanted at the exact same time.’
Gardner, who has not confirmed whether it was her choice to leave SNL, proceeded to point out that she was ‘being really vulnerable’ speaking on the topic, at all.
While marveling over how Nwodim ‘had the moment of the year’ when Gardner’s ‘hero’ Jack Black hosted the show in April 2024, the Shrinking actress confessed to feeling slightly jealous.
‘There’s a part of me, like if I think about it, I’m like, wait, but I should want that for me. But you had it and it was f**king awesome,’ she said.
Nwodim replied: ‘It’s so easy to be caught up with your own stuff at SNL, and what you’re getting on and what you’re not getting on, and how you’re succeeding and how you wish you were doing better, or how I want what that person has.’
‘I remember so many times being like, why can’t we be able to be winning together at the same time, so it could feel like full celebration and not one of us mourning or frustrated and one of us like on cloud nine,’ she continued.
Although Nwodim was asked to return, it is unknown whether Gardner quit or was axed during SNL creator Lorne Michaels’ shakeup.
‘The sketches, they come, they go, they’re really fun. They can be hard, they can be things you’re not into, whatever. But I’m like, if you can leave—in a place where it can get so competitive and you can become so self involved, if you can leave and be still remarkably lovely and such a light and still pouring into other people like you, I think you succeeded,’ Nwodim told Gardner. ‘You were just such a light in what can be such a challenging place.’
Like Nwodim, who said the series was ‘not the easiest place’ to work, Walker shared a similar sentiment after his firing.
‘To be frank, I guess the best way I put it is like me and the show kind of looked at each other and we decided together that it was time to go our separate ways,’ the comedian told Rolling Stone in August.
He added: ‘I think I felt ready to leave the show, and I think the show felt ready to leave me… I was just ready to do something else… We both felt like it was time.’
Previously, he wrote on Instagram that the show was sometimes ‘toxic as h**l’ but they ‘made the most of what it was, even amidst all of the dysfunction.’
‘We made a f**ked up lil family,’ he explained.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Gardner’s reps for comment. A spokesperson for NBC declined to comment to the Daily Mail.
Gardner joined Saturday Night Live in 2017 during season 43 as a featured player along with now-former SNL stars Luke Null and Chris Redd.
She was then promoted to the main cast two years later.
Since then, the Missouri-born actress has written and starred in countless iconic SNL sketches.
She is best known for creating the hilarious character Bailey Gismert, a teen movie critic, who often appeared during SNL’s Weekend Update segments.
Gardner also impersonated a number of high-profile celebrities during her eight years on SNL, including Reba McEntire, Oscar-winner Mikey Madison and Kim Kardashian.
She joined fellow SNL stars and alums at the show’s 50th anniversary special in February.
Confirmation of Gardner’s exit comes after she seemingly hinted at leaving the show earlier this year.
While appearing on an episode of Craig Ferguson’s Joy podcast, she admitted that things behind the scenes had gotten ‘a little tough’ and that she was feeling fatigued.
‘I will say the only thing that I’ve started to feel a little bit is just sketch fatigue, or idea fatigue,’ she told Ferguson at the time.
‘At this point, after doing Groundlings and SNL for so long, I’m like, ‘I’ve written a lot of sketches.’
Gardner’s shock departure evoked a strong reaction from SNL fans on social media — with some demanding that the show be canceled ahead of season 51.
Another speculated that SNL’s mass exodus could be due to a cut back on production costs as they called for NBC to ‘just cancel SNL already.’
Many were left frustrated over the loss of another beloved player, with one fan declaring Gardner ‘the heart and soul of the show.’
Another penned: ‘Wow, she’s one of the funny people still there.’
Among the tweets expressing sadness and disappointment over Gardner’s exit, several fans saw it as an opportunity for a new, young comic to make a name for themselves on the show.