Bowen Yang is leaving “Saturday Night Live” during the upcoming Christmas break, months after the mass cast exodus that followed the landmark 50th season.
The 35-year-old breakout star will stay on board for the Dec. 20 show, per Deadline and People. The holiday special will be hosted by Ariana Grande, who co-stars with the five-time Emmy nominee in both “Wicked” installments.
The episode’s musical guest is Cher.
Yang made history in 2019 as the long-running NBC sketch show’s first-ever Chinese-American cast member, having started as a writer in the show’s 44th season the year before. Yang continued to blaze new trails in 2021 as the first Chinese-American nominated for an acting Emmy and the first “SNL” featured player to be tapped for the award. Yang was also among the first openly gay cast members on “SNL.”
Bowen Yang, “Saturday Night Live’s” first Chinese-American cast member, is from Denver
Regarding “SNL” as a “growing, living thing where new people come in and you do have to sort of make way for them and to grow and to keep elevating themselves,” Yang told People in April he would “hang it up at some point,” without pointing to a specific end date.
The “Las Culturistas” co-host again hinted at his forthcoming departure when speaking to the outlet in September that he felt he had “more to do” live from New York.
The sentiment was echoed by creator Lorne Michaels, which Yang said “means a lot, because I even confessed to him … ‘I feel the audience is maybe getting sick of me.’ And he was like, ‘That’s not true. There’s more for you to do. I need you to.'”
It’s unclear whether Yang and Michaels, 81, now feel the former has fulfilled his potential at Studio 8H.
Beyond “SNL,” Yang received the Academy Museum’s 2025 Vantage Award earlier this year for “artists who help challenge dominant narratives in cinema.”
Recent months have resulted in a great deal of turnover for the 50-year-old series. Cast members Heidi Gardner, Michael Longfellow, Devon Walker and Emil Wakim all departed after the milestone season, as did the show’s first-ever out trans and nonbinary staff writer, Celeste Yim.
A midseason departure is more of a rarity, having last occurred with longtime cast member Cecily Strong’s exit in December 2022.
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