\n<\/p>\n
\n\tBowen Yang praised his \u2018Saturday Night Live\u2018 co-star and collaborator Heidi Gardner after her exit from the late-night sketch show. Speaking on his Las Culturistas<\/em> podcast, Yang said of Gardner, \u201cYou are one of the greats. You will go down in history.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tGardner is one of several cast members not returning for Season 51. The show is losing Gardner, Devon Walker, Michael Longfellow, Emil Wakim, and John Higgins while gaining five new cast members. <\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI am thrilled to go back,\u201d Yang acknowledged. \u201cI will miss the people who are not coming back very, very much.\u201d He added, \u201cShout out Devon, Emil, Michael Longfellow. They were fantastic comedians going in. They are fantastic comedians coming out. Those are some A+ gems.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHe singled out Gardner as a cast member who was trusted to write sketches solo. \u201cIt\u2019s always a very, very vulnerable thing as a cast member to put only your name on it,\u201d Yang said. \u201cBut anytime you saw just \u2018Gardner,\u2019 you knew you were in good hands. She would take it upon herself to write pieces for other cast.\u201d <\/p>\n \n\tHe recalled a \u201cWeekend Update\u201d segment Gardner penned for former cast member Punkie Johnson. \u201cIt was one of the most beautiful, kindest gestures I\u2019ve ever seen at that show, and her heart was so big, and clearly so fucking funny,\u201d Yang said. \u201cA true anchor on that show.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tYang also credited Gardner with helping to get the cast through the Covid pandemic. \u201c[She was] one of the first people who was just like, \u2018Okay, just to get through this, let\u2019s just each wake up, no rush, there\u2019s no time limit \u2014 let\u2019s just each text each other every day, something that made us smile today,\u2019\u201d Yang recalled. \u201cAnd that was this foothold that I had emotionally in terms of knowing we were just sharing music.\u201d He called his former co-star \u201ca truly beautiful person.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n \n\tEarlier this week, after a\u00a0string of departures,\u00a0Saturday Night Live\u00a0<\/em>confirmed its Season 51 cast, with\u00a0Yang,\u00a0Kenan Thompson, and\u00a0Weekend Update\u00a0<\/em>co-hosts\u00a0Colin Jost\u00a0and\u00a0Michael Che\u00a0among those set to return. According to\u00a0multiple\u00a0reports, much of last year\u2019s main cast will be back at Studio 8H this fall, including Ego Nwodim, Chloe Fineman, Marcello Hernandez, Andrew Dismukes, Sarah Sherman, and James Austin Johnson (who, of course, handles the show\u2019s\u00a0all-important\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0impression).<\/p>\n \n\tThe\u00a0biggest exit this year was Gardner, who enjoyed a very successful eight-year run on the show. During season 49, she participated in more sketches than any other cast member, and she was the longest-tenured female cast member during Season 50.\u00a0Gardner has yet to address her departure from the show.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bowen Yang praised his \u2018Saturday Night Live\u2018 co-star and collaborator Heidi Gardner after her exit from the late-night sketch show. Speaking on his Las Culturistas podcast, Yang said of Gardner, \u201cYou are one of the greats. You will go down in history.\u201d Gardner is one of several cast members not returning for Season 51. The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[12225,3668,12642,12641,2052,7983,5301,12226],"class_list":{"0":"post-20550","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-bowen","9":"tag-exit","10":"tag-gardner","11":"tag-heidi","12":"tag-pays","13":"tag-snl","14":"tag-tribute","15":"tag-yang"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n