Kenan Thompson has been a cast member on “Saturday Night Live” for a record 22 seasons, so you’d think nothing could surprise him. But Morgan Wallen did.
The country singer got tongues wagging when he broke with tradition, leaving the stage of “Saturday Night Live” just six seconds into the credits.
Wallen was Saturday’s musical guest on “SNL’ alongside host, “Anora” star Mikey Madison. But during the show’s traditional wrap up, when cast members all take the stage, Wallen whispered something in Madison’s ear, then walked off the front of the stage. The singer walked directly in front of the camera while the show was still on the air, surprising cast members and viewers alike.
That includes SNL veteran Kenan Thompson. In an interview with “Entertainment Weekly” shortly afterward, Thompson said, “I don’t know what goes through people’s minds when they decide to do stuff like that. I don’t know if he understood the assignment or not, or if he was really feeling a certain kind of way,”
Kenan Thompson Compares Morgan Wallen to Prince
46-year-old Thompson was light-hearted about the incident, telling EW, “You see somebody before you get a chance to say hi or say good job or anything like that, they just dipping. I thought maybe he had to go to the potty or something.”
“It’s definitely a spike in the norm,” he added. “We’re so used to everybody just turning around and high-fiving us, everybody’s saying, ‘Good job, good job, good job.’ So when there’s a departure from that, it’s like, hmm, I wonder what that’s about.”
But Morgan Wallen’s abrupt departure is not the first time a musical guest has left without saying goodby.
While Thompson says he didn’t really interact with Wallen during show week or in the singer’s previous appearance on “Saturday Night Live,” he was circumspect about the stage exit. “Seems like a complicated individual, I guess,” Thompson told EW. “Prince did the same thing,” he went on to say. “I’m not saying Morgan Wallen is Prince, but we weren’t surprised because Prince was notoriously kind of standoffish. It’s just how he was. So we just thought like, ‘Okay, now he’s gone back into fantasyland. But Saturday I guess it was just different because it just felt so abrupt. And it was already such a small grouping on the stage anyway. So it was just like, oh wow, that was pretty visible. You know what I’m saying? It was a pretty visible thing.”
NBC Execs Say No Harm, No Foul
Meanwhile, NBC’s take on the exit is more low-key. According to “TMZ,” network insiders say there is “no bad blood on their end.” They add that they would “totally” have the country music star back in the future.
The insiders stress the swift departure was nothing more than “just an awkward moment at the end of the show.”
It’s not the first time NBC has addressed controversy surrounding the so-called bad boy of country music.
Wallen made his SNL debut in December 2020. That was two months after being removed from the show lineup for violating pandemic protocols that were in place at the time. The week he was set to appear, Wallen was photographed maskless at a University of Alabama football game, kissing female students.
When he appeared on SNL two months later, Wallen took part in a skit making fun of the incident alongside host Jason Bateman.
Those Close to Wallen Say the Singer Meant No Harm
Morgan Wallen hasn’t publicly commented on his stage exit. But a source close to the singer told “People” magazine that Wallen didn’t mean to offend anyone by walking off the stage before the show was over. In fact, the source says Wallen wasn’t thinking about how his actions would look to viewers or cast members at all.
Meanwhile, Wallen himself seems to have shifted his focus to his soon-to-be released album. “I’m the Problem,” drops May 16. The singer just posted a clip of new song “Come Back as a Redneck” on his Instagram account.
Wallen will launch a 19-city tour to support the album on June 20. Even before the new album drops, Wallen holds the all-time record for most weeks at number one on Billboard’s Top Country Album Chart. The legendary Garth Brooks previously held that title, now surpassed by Wallen.
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Morgan Wallen’s SNL Exit Surprises Kenan Thompson