Comedian Bowen Yang is leaving the cast of Saturday Night Live and will no longer appear on the long-running sketch program after the airing of its final episode.
In an Instagram post, Yang declined to give a reason for his departure, which comes mid-season, but said he was “grateful for every minute of my time there.”
“I loved working on SNL, and most of all I loved the people,” wrote Yang, who started in 2018 as a writer for the NBC program before joining the cast.
Yang, 35, is the first Chinese-American staff member in SNL history and one of the most prominent SNL cast members in recent years.
In an Instagram post, Ian described the lessons he learned while working at SNL.
“I learned about myself (badly with wigs). I learned about others (generous, vulnerable, passionate),” he wrote.
“I learned that human error cannot be anything other than right. I learned that comedy is mostly about logistics, and that it usually fails until it fails, and that's the best part.”
He also thanked the other cast members, as well as Lorne Michaels, the program's longtime producer.
Yang was behind some of the program's most memorable characters and skits, including the iceberg that sank the Titanic and disgraced former congressman George Santos.
Young's final episode, airing Saturday night, will be hosted by Ariana Grande, one of the stars of Wicked: For Good.
Ian also played a role in the film and has starred in previous films including The Wedding Banquet, Fire Island, Brothers and the first film Wicked.
He was nominated for five Emmy Awards for his work on SNL. He is also the co-host of the Las Culturistas podcast and is expected to voice a character in the animated film The Cat in the Hat, due out next year.
