Bowen Yang reveals why he left 'Saturday Night Live' after 7 years

Bowen Yang is discussing his Saturday Night Live run and why he exited after seven years.

During the January 7 episode of his Las Culturistas podcast, Bowen reflected on the reason he left the comedy show, saying, "This is honestly what’s behind it. It’s time. Like, you would do seven seasons and then you would scoot."

"COVID and the current media landscape, 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 to," he added.

"I have this very beautiful thing where I get to say that I stayed on exactly as long as I wanted to. Maybe, I’m sure — and I’ve said this before — I was maybe unsure about going back in the summer and I’m so glad I did," he added.

Bowen joined SNL back in 2018 as a writer and then became a cast member the next year.

It was announced on December 19 that the beloved cast member was leaving the show.

He confirmed it with an Instagram statement the next day, writing, "I loved working at SNL, and most of all I loved the people. I was there at a time when many things in the world started to seem futile, but working at 30 rock taught me the value in showing up anyway when people make it worthwhile."

"I’m grateful for every minute of my time there. I learned about myself (bad with wigs). I learned about others (generous, vulnerable, hot). I learned that human error can be nothing but correct. I learned that comedy is mostly logistics and that it will usually fail until it doesn’t, which is the besssst," he added.