NEW YORK (AP) — Devon Walker is leaving “Saturday Night Live,” in the first of what could be several cast departures as the storied program prepares for its 51st season.
“Me and the show did three years together, and sometimes it was really cool,” Walker wrote Monday on Instagram. “Sometimes it was toxic as hell. But we did what we made the most of what it was, even amidst all of the dysfunction.”
The note in his post was titled: “wait … did he quit or did he get fired?”
Walker’s announcement comes as “SNL” creator Lorne Michaels is saying that he anticipates changes following the show’s historic 50th season. No cast members had announced their departure following the season’s conclusion. In an interview with Puck that ran last week, Michaels answered “yes” when asked if he expected to “shake things up.”
“It’ll be announced in a week or so,” he said then.
Representative for “Saturday Night Live” did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Meanwhile, “SNL” writer Celeste Yim announced they were leaving after five seasons. Yim, the show’s first openly nonbinary writer, posted last weekend on Instagram that the job was a dream come true “BUT was also grueling and I slept in my office every week BUT my friends helped me with everything BUT I got yelled at by random famous men BUT some famous girls too BUT I loved it and I laughed every day and it’s where I grew up.”
Michaels told Puck at least one cast member was certain to be back: James Austin Johnson, who plays President Donald Trump.
Since its debut in 1975, the NBC program has reinvented itself often, with performers over the past 50 years ranging from John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd to Kate McKinnon and Kenan Thompson. The 51st season will premiere Oct. 4.
