Bowen Yang is leaving “Saturday Night Live” during the upcoming Christmas break, months after the that followed the landmark 50th season.
The 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, who hails from Aurora, 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.”
Yang is a Smoky Hill High School graduate and has credited his high school improv teacher Adrian Holguin for his interest in comedy, having performed in the Colorado improv group Spontaneous Combustion.
He was also awarded a pretty apt senior superlative when he graduated in 2008: “Most Likely to Be a Cast Member on Saturday Night Live.”
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 without pointing to a specific end date.
The co-host again hinted at his forthcoming departure when speaking to the outlet in September that he 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, ‘Thatap not true. There’s more for you to do. I need you to.'”
Itap unclear whether Yang and Michaels, 81, now feel the former has fulfilled his potential at Studio 8H.
Beyond “SNL,” Yang received the 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, and all departed after the milestone season, as did the writer, .
A midseason departure is more of a rarity, having last occurred with longtime cast member in December 2022.
