Bowen Yang Opens Up About Leaving SNL and Fires Back at “No Range” Critics

Bowen Yang opened up about leaving “Saturday Night Live” and reflected on his time on the show during a recent episode of his podcast “Las Culturistas,” which he co-hosts with comedian Matt Rogers.

Yang said he chose to leave on his own terms and appreciated being able to make that decision. “The current entertainment ecosystem is so turbulent that people have completely valid reasons for staying longer, or in a lot of cases, don’t have the privilege of staying on as long as they would like. I have this very beautiful thing where I get to say that I stayed on exactly as long as I wanted to,” he said.

Yang joined “SNL” as a writer in 2018 and became a featured cast member in Season 45. He was promoted to the main cast in Season 47 and was the first Asian cast member on the show. His exit, announced on December 19, came just before his final episode, which aired with Ariana Grande hosting.

Yang appeared in several sketches that evening, including a musical parody with Grande and a return of his fan-favorite duo, the Trend Forecasters, alongside Aidy Bryant. The show ended with a heartfelt farewell sketch at the JFK Delta Lounge, where Yang shared eggnog with his castmates before Ariana Grande and Cher joined him for a final goodbye.

During the podcast, Yang also addressed criticism he faced about his supposed “lack of range” on the show. “I feel like I was really bogged down the entire time I was there about the idea that there was no range in anything I did,” he explained.

He said he understood why some people might see it that way but argued the critiques often ignored the limitations of sketch comedy and the way archetypes are used. “I knew I was never gonna play the dad. I was never gonna play the generic thing in sketches. It’s a sketch show; each thing is like four minutes long. It is short and collapsed by necessity, so therefore it plays on archetypes,” Yang said.

He added that much of the criticism he received was rooted in stereotypes. “People had their over-determinations on what I was, which was: ‘Oh, that’s just the gay Asian guy on SNL.’ So anytime I would try to work outside of that, it got completely ignored or it still got collapsed to, ‘Oh, he’s being gay and Asian as always,’” Yang said.

Rogers responded that much of the feedback was likely unintentional, and Yang agreed, calling the idea of “range” more about audience comfort than actual performance ability. “I think range is a myth and it’s all about palatability, whether you’re getting taxed on it or you are subsidized,” he said.

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