Bowen Yang, one of the defining voices of a new generation on NBC’s long-running sketch institution Saturday Night Live, has confirmed he is leaving the show midway through its 51st season, ending a seven-year run that reshaped the series’ sense of representation, queerness and internet-age absurdism.

Image Illustration. Photo by Bruna Araujo on Unsplash

A Midseason Exit After Eight Seasons in Studio 8H

Yang’s final episode aired on December 20, 2025, with his Wicked co-star Ariana Grande hosting and Cher as musical guest — an unusually star-studded backdrop for a cast member’s goodbye.

Image Illustration. Photo by Coline Haslé on Unsplash

NBC and trade outlets reported that Yang would depart after the Christmas episode, making him the latest high-profile performer to leave during or just after the landmark 50th and 51st seasons. His exit comes only months after the departures of fellow repertory players Ego Nwodim and Heidi Gardner, among others, underscoring a period of rapid turnover on the show.

From Staff Writer to History-Making Star

Yang joined SNL’s writing staff in 2018 and became a featured player the following year, during Season 45. By Season 47, he had been promoted to full repertory cast member, a rapid rise that mirrored his growing cultural profile.

Born in Australia and raised in Colorado, Yang became the first Chinese American and one of the first openly gay performers in the show’s 50-year history — milestones that turned his hiring into a symbolic shift as much as a casting decision. His historic status has been widely noted by outlets including The Los Angeles Times and major entertainment magazines, which have framed his tenure as a turning point for Asian American and queer comedy on network television.

Yang’s characters — from a chaotic iceberg complaining about the Titanic coverage to the hippo Moo Deng and a deliriously confident Chen Biao — exemplified a sensibility shaped by meme culture, queer nightlife and diasporic identity. His impressions of public figures like former Representative George Santos and Vice President J.D. Vance routinely went viral, helping the series maintain its relevance in a fragmented streaming era.

A Farewell Written in Tears, Eggnog and Instagram

The announcement of Yang’s departure broke in the days leading up to the December 20 broadcast, when multiple outlets including Forbes and NBC-owned stations reported that the upcoming Christmas episode would be his last.

Yang himself confirmed the news in a reflective Instagram post, writing that he “loved working at SNL” and felt “grateful for every minute” spent at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. He described learning that “human error can be nothing but correct” and thanked creator Lorne Michaels “for the job” and “the standard,” in comments later quoted by entertainment outlets.

On air, Yang’s farewell was woven into a sketch in which he played a Delta lounge employee working his final shift, closing his eggnog station as he choked up about leaving a place he’d loved. “I just feel so lucky that I ever got to work here,” he told another character — a line that doubled as commentary on his real-life exit. The sketch culminated in an emotional performance of “Please Come Home for Christmas” with Grande, followed by a surprise appearance from Cher, who joined them onstage in a send-off captured by outlets like People and Entertainment Weekly.

Why Now? A Departure Without a Stated Reason

Yang has not publicly shared a specific reason for leaving, and reporting so far points to a personal career decision rather than a single flashpoint moment. According to public radio reporting from NPR affiliates, he simply framed his exit as a moment of gratitude for colleagues and an acknowledgment that it was time to move on.

In interviews earlier in 2025, Yang had suggested he didn’t yet have a set deadline for leaving the series, telling People magazine in September that he stayed by following an instinct of whether he had “more to do” on the show. By December, that calculus appears to have changed, even as he kept details of the decision private.

A Career Built Beyond ‘SNL’

Yang leaves Studio 8H with a crowded slate of projects and a profile that extends well beyond late-night sketch comedy. In recent years he has appeared in the film adaptation of Wicked and its sequel, as well as in projects like the queer rom-com Fire Island and a remake of Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet.

He also co-hosts the influential pop-culture podcast Las Culturistas with comedian Matt Rogers, a show whose tongue-in-cheek “Culture Awards” special graduated to a televised event on cable and streaming this year.

Financially, Yang’s move comes as he reaches the upper tier of the SNL pay scale, where established cast members are estimated to earn up to around $25,000 per episode according to industry estimates cited by the Economic Times. A standard 21-episode season would put top performers in the low six figures annually from the show alone, before outside projects.

What Yang’s Exit Signals for ‘SNL’

Yang’s departure is part of a larger generational handover at SNL, which has seen at least six cast members exit in 2025 alone following its golden-anniversary 50th season. New hires like Tommy Brennan and Veronika Slowikowska, as well as the promotion of “Please Don’t Destroy” alum Ben Marshall, suggest Lorne Michaels is again retooling the ensemble in anticipation of the next decade.

For viewers, the loss is immediate: Yang was an anchor of the current cast, a performer whose sketches routinely drove online conversation on Sunday mornings. For the show, his exit opens space for younger players — particularly queer and nonwhite comedians — to shape the next wave of its comedy. Michaels himself has repeatedly said that cast turnover is essential to the show’s survival, even as individual departures sting for fans.

A Legacy That Stretches Beyond Studio 8H

By the time the final credits rolled on his Christmas send-off, Yang had done what few modern SNL cast members manage: he left as both a beloved utility player and a symbol of what the series can become when it reflects a broader America.

His run brought new kinds of characters to network comedy, expanded expectations of who gets to be weird and specific on a Saturday-night stage, and inspired a generation of Asian American and queer performers who saw themselves, for the first time, not just in the audience but at the center of the joke.

Where Yang goes next — to films, streaming series, or perhaps more boundary-pushing audio and live work — remains to be seen. But his exit from Saturday Night Live is already more than a personnel change: it is the close of a chapter in how American TV comedy understands identity, absurdity and the power of a single performer to bend a 50-year-old format around his own voice.