Kenan Thompson Clearly Wasn't A Fan Of Morgan Wallen's "Abrupt" "SNL" Exit And Cryptic Instagram Post
In case you missed it: Morgan was the musical guest on this weekend's episode, with Anora Oscar winner Mikey Madison as the host. Traditionally, everyone — even the host and the guest — stick around while the credits roll on the episode. Here's a photo of Mikey thanking everyone right before the end of the show...
And here's what happened right after, when Morgan basically got the hell out of Dodge as soon as possible after whispering something in Mikey's ear.
Thank you, Mikey Madison and @MorganWallen! Goodnight! pic.twitter.com/FDlInhhHqb
— Saturday Night Live - SNL (@nbcsnl) March 30, 2025
@nbcsnl / Via x.com
To seasoned SNL viewers, the whole thing was deeply strange — and things got even stranger when Morgan posted an IG Story shortly afterwards of a private jet set to take off in the middle of the night, with the caption "Get me to God's country."
Since then, speculation has swirled as to what actually went down. Sources have claimed that the whole thing is just one lil' misunderstanding, while an SNL writer took very gentle aim at his "God's country" post.
Now, longtime SNL cast member Kenan Thompson has weighed in on the whole situation in an interview with Entertainment Weekly — and it sounds like he, too, was a bit weirded out by the situation.
"I don't know what goes through people's minds when they decide to do stuff like that," he told the publication, later confirming that he "definitely saw" Morgan's quick dash off set. "I don't know if he understood the assignment or not, or if he was really feeling a certain kind of way. 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. 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?"
Kenan went on to say that he "never met" Morgan during rehearsal week, and that he "seems like a complicated individual." He also went on to point out that Morgan isn't necessarily the first SNL musical guest to dip so fast.
John Shearer / Getty Images for for Morgan Wallen's One Night At A Time 2024
"Prince did the same thing," he said, seemingly referencing the iconic late musician's 2006 appearance on SNL. "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.'"
Dana Edelson / NBCUniversal via Getty Images
"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."
Kenan also admitted that he wasn't over the moon about Morgan's cryptic IG statement. "The 'God's country' of it all is strange because it's like, what are you trying to say?" he said. "You trying to say that we are not in God's country? We're not all in God's country? We're not all under God's umbrella? That's not necessarily my favorite."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Paula Deen reveals she nearly died ‘of a broken heart' in rare TV appearance after scandal
Paula Deen is ready to share her story. The former Food Network star, 78, appeared on 'Fox and Friends' Wednesday to discuss some of the lowest points in her life, including her agoraphobia battle and her 2013 racism scandal that tarnished her career, ahead of her documentary that comes out next month. 'Let me tell you something, Steve. I thought I was going to die of a broken heart,' she told host Steve Doocy at her Savannah, Georgia home. 'And I said I couldn't let myself fall back into that terrible [agoraphobia].' Advertisement 7 Paula Deen on 'Fox and Friends' on August 20. FOX News 7 Steve Doocy interviewing Paula Deen for Fox. FOX News 'But I had, like, 5 and a half, 6 million people come in on my Facebook and put their arms around me,' Deen added. 'And without y'all, I would not have survived.' Advertisement The celebrity chef explained that she self-diagnosed herself with agoraphobia — an anxiety disorder characterized by a fear of situations where escape might be difficult — after she watched an episode of 'The Phil Donahue Show.' 7 Paula Deen appears on 'Today' in 2013. NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images 'I considered what I would call a functioning sometimes-agoraphobic,' she shared. 'You're so afraid someone's going to hurt you.' 'I had lost my daddy when he was just 40. He was the star of my life,' Deen went on. 'And then my mother, my best friend, I lost her at 44, four years later. I had a 16-year-old brother to try to finish raising and I had two babies under 3.' Advertisement But after dealing with agoraphobia for 20 years, Deen eventually had an epiphany that helped her overcome the anxiety. 7 Paula Deen attends Hallmark's 'Home and Family' at Universal Studios Hollywood in 2017. Getty Images 'The Serenity Prayer went through my head, and I said, 'Girl, you are so stupid. That's what you're supposed to be asking God for, to be able to accept the serenity to accept the things you couldn't change, the courage to change the things that you could, and dear lord, please give me the sense to know the difference between those two things,'' she said. 7 Paula Deen at the 2011 Tournament of Roses in Pasadena, California. Getty Images Advertisement Deen has barely been on television since the scandal that occurred 12 years ago. The Food Network canceled Deen's show in 2013 amid fallout from a lawsuit by a former employee. A transcript of Deen answering questions under oath in a legal deposition became public, which revealed she had used the N-word. Deen's career has not been the same since the scandal. Earlier this month, she announced the closure of her Savannah restaurant The Lady & Sons that launched her into fame. 7 Paula Deen during her Thanksgiving special in 2005. 7 Paula Deen attends the EVINE Live launch event in New York in 2015. Andy Kropa /Invision/AP The cookbook author will be discussing her racism controversy and more in her upcoming documentary 'Canceled: The Paula Deen Story,' which premieres at the Toronto Film Festival in September. Directed by Billy Corben, the film 'explores what it means when we build up celebrities and then tear them down,' according to TIFF's website. 'You may think you know the story of Paula Deen, but Corben uncovers perspectives and gradations that complicate anyone's hot take,' the description adds.
New York Post
3 hours ago
- New York Post
Sydney Sweeney's ‘The Housemaid' director reveals how she handled ‘her engagement falling apart'
Sydney Sweeney always keeps it professional. Despite breaking off her engagement to ex-fiancé Jonathan Davino earlier this year, Sweeney, 27, 'was completely present emotionally' while filming 'The Housemaid' at the same time, according to director Paul Feig. She 'was just up for anything,' Feig told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published Wednesday, 'and really didn't bring any issues to set.' 8 Jonathan Davino and Sydney Sweeney attend the InStyle and Kate Spade dinner in Los Angeles in Oct. 2018. Getty Images for InStyle 8 Paul Feig at the 'King of Drag' premiere in West Hollywood on June 22. Getty Images for Revry 'And I know she was going through some things when this was going on—I mean, now everybody knows about her engagement falling apart and breaking off and all that,' the filmmaker explained of Sweeney. Feig recalled: 'I'd say, 'Hey, are you OK?' and she'd go, 'I'm fine, I'm great!' but not defensively.' 'The Housemaid,' based on Freida McFadden's 2022 psychological thriller novel, stars Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar and Michele Morrone. It was shot in New Jersey from January to March and comes out on Christmas. 8 Sydney Sweeney and Paul Feig at CinemaCon 2025. WireImage 8 Amanda Seyfried, Paul Feig and Sydney Sweeney promote 'The Housemaid' at CinemaCon 2025. Getty Images for CinemaCon In the spring, news broke that Sweeney and Davino, 42, split after getting engaged in 2022. In the WSJ interview, Sweeney declined to comment on the state of her professional relationship with her ex, with whom she founded a production company, Fifty-Fifty Films, five years ago. 8 Jonathan Davino and Sydney Sweeney in Venice in September 2024. Aissaoui Nacer / BACKGRID 'I'm going to keep all of my personal stuff out of it,' she told the outlet A source previously told People that Sweeney and Davino's relationship had been 'rocky for a long time.' The insider added that the 'Euphoria' star 'didn't feel right' about walking down the aisle with the businessman, which led her to break things off. 8 Sydney Sweeney leaving the Plaza Hotel for the 'Echo Valley' premiere in New York on June 4. GC Images 'She's exactly where she wants to be,' the source continued. 'Most people would feel overwhelmed by her working schedule this year, but not Syd. She's all about working right now and very excited about all her projects.' Sweeney and the film producer were first romantically linked in 2018. He popped the question four years later. 8 Sydney Sweeney and Jonathan Davino step out in Venice, Italy in Sept. 2023. Billy Rosewood / 'We're in it together,' she said about Davino in an Oct. 2024 interview with Glamour magazine. 'And we want to see each other succeed.' 'I'm a very successful, independent woman who's worked really hard,' Sweeney added. 'I've accomplished and bought everything myself, and I provide for myself and my family.' After the breakup, the exes were spotted out to lunch in Los Angeles, with Davino walking their dog before sitting down to eat. 8 Sydney Sweeney attends the 'Americana' premiere in Los Angeles on Aug. 3. Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/MEGA Sweeney also sparked dating rumors again with her 'Anyone But You' co-star Glen Powell when she attended his sister's wedding in Texas on March 30. However, Powell, 36, played coy about the status of their relationship when he was on 'Today With Jenna & Friends' after the wedding. 'You know, timing is everything in this world,' he said while laughing. '[Leslie] and Syd are obviously great friends and it was a hell of a wedding.'
Atlantic
4 hours ago
- Atlantic
What We Gain When We Stop Caring
Sometime in the early aughts, the comedian Amy Poehler made a vulgar joke while sitting in the Saturday Night Live writers' room waiting for a midweek read-through to begin. As detailed in Tina Fey's 2011 memoir, Bossypants, Jimmy Fallon, who was also in the show's cast at the time, jokingly recoiled and told Poehler to stop it. 'It's not cute!' Fallon exclaimed. 'I don't like it.' 'Amy dropped what she was doing, went black in the eyes for a second, and wheeled around on him,' Fey writes. ''I don't fucking care if you like it.'' I was brought back to Fey's Poehler-Fallon anecdote when a friend shared the first of Melani Sanders's 'We Do Not Care' videos with me. Earlier this summer, Sanders, who identifies herself as a wife and mother, posted a short rant cum manifesto on Instagram, filmed in her car after a grocery run, in which she declared that she was not going to take it anymore. What's 'it'? Well, societal expectations about female comportment, for one thing. She does not care, she announces, that she doesn't have a 'real bra' on. Sanders did not— does not—care about a bunch of other things, as she made clear in subsequent videos. She does not care about shaving her legs, or grooming her chin hairs, or having edge control in her hair. She does not care about wearing matching clothes, or that her hair isn't combed. She does not care about pointless small talk, about that flashing light in her car, or that her house is a hot mess. Sanders's first post reminded me a bit of Jane O'Reilly's famous article, ' Click! The Housewife's Moment of Truth,' which ran in the first issue of Ms. Magazine, in 1972. In her story, O'Reilly examined her friends' and neighbors' feminist awakenings—'click!' moments—about patriarchal expectations regarding women's unpaid labor, writing: 'One little click turns on a thousand others.' In Sanders's case, her click turned on thousands of others; at least half a dozen women forwarded that first video to me, and I suspect this was how many others came to it. Each of Sanders's videos is accompanied by thousands of comments, most by apparently delighted women who feel liberated by Sanders's exhortations. (Sanders, who notes that she's speaking for perimenopausal and menopausal women, often invites viewers to chime in with the things that they no longer care about, and seems to incorporate them in subsequent posts.) Indeed, there is an element of call-and-response to the We Do Not Care Club, which Sanders herself has, consciously or not, encouraged. In that first post in May, Sanders used the first person. By the next day, she had switched over to the first-person plural. ('We don't care what's for dinner.') A day later, Sanders just came out and said it: 'We do not care about people-pleasing.' Here's the thing: When Sanders says she doesn't care about 'people-pleasing,' she's saying, in effect, that she doesn't care about pleasing men. This is, to my mind, the wonderfully subversive message that's gotten lost in the initial flurry of discussion about the We Do Not Care Club. That the majority of her audience is women makes perfect sense, given that the we in 'We Do Not Care' clearly refers to them. That, in turn, suggests that the implied 'you' in Sanders's statements is men, collectively. Sanders's digital rebellion speaks both to and for a silent majority of women who are tired of contorting themselves to appeal to, or appease, male expectations of who they should be, whether those men are romantic partners, strangers, or Jimmy Fallon himself. And though Sanders calls the We Do Not Care Club a 'movement' with 'members,' I think it's more accurate to say that it is a revolt against misogyny. Plenty of women seem to agree. Responses to her videos, I've noticed, frequently make Sanders's implicit critique of male expectations explicit. (A representative example: 'We do not care if you don't like what you see, just look the other way!') Commenting under a New York Times article about Sanders's club, one woman wrote, 'I do not care about the male gaze.' Another noted: 'In my early 40s, I started to gain weight and I noticed how it made me invisible to unwanted male attention, and I liked it.' Of course, plenty of the things that Sanders and her followers do not care about seem to relate to the female gaze. You could argue that whether or not a woman has a pedicure or gray hair is as much about pleasing, or not offending, other women as it is about men. (Tina Fey again: 'Women dress for other women in order to let them know what their deal is.') Women may be dressing for other women, but aren't we also dressing for men? After all, most women, whether or not we're always conscious of it, are subject to some form of male appraisal about how we look and behave, which can in turn affect the way we're able to move through the world. Even older women, who tend to go unseen by society and overlooked as vital, sexual beings, are reminded on a regular basis of the power of the male gaze—and how easily it can be revoked. There's a lot that is freeing about getting older, including not giving as much of a damn. And it's important that Sanders says that her messages are meant for perimenopausal and menopausal women. Menopause is having a moment, and the We Do Not Care Club feels like a natural extension of the growing visibility of discussions about crepey skin and hot flashes and vaginal dryness. (In late June, Sanders was tapped as a spokesperson for the vaginal moisturizer Replens.) This is why seeing the 40-something Sanders reclining sideways on her bed wearing three pairs of glasses and marking off a list of things 'we' do not care about that includes having chin hairs, unshaved legs, and cellulite that's visible in short shorts is so captivating. But the messages contained within the We Do Not Care videos are, in the end, applicable to women of all ages. They're not just eruptions from a cohort of women for whom a lifetime's worth of expectations have reached their expiration date, but permission slips with which women of younger generations can eagerly anticipate a more unencumbered future—and perhaps even freedom in the present. They need it. Photo filters and AI are changing how we present ourselves to the public, raising expectations about having the smoothest skin and the plumpest lips. An ascendant MAGA aesthetic that plays up what the fashion critic Vanessa Friedman has called 'a retrograde gendered paradigm' jostles with trad-wife and wellness influencers who project visions of polished (and predominantly white) womanhood. And younger generations (much too young, I'd argue) are adopting expensive skin-care routines in order to, as the journalist Elise Hu put it, 'optimize one's face' and address 'the added burden of worrying earlier about wrinkles.' These so-called Sephora tweens, inspired by online beauty influencers, appear to be succumbing to the opposite message that many of us with actual wrinkles are welcoming: embracing a more observable older femininity, replete with fine lines and emergent fat on our underarms—and, as Poehler would say, not fucking caring if others like it. A few years ago, I wrote a story for this magazine about the power of saying no, in which I called on women to reject the socialization that begins in childhood and that nudges us to always be accommodating. I argued that we need to allow ourselves to refuse the things that are demanded of us, to erect and defend boundaries. This, I think, is why I, and so many others, have been so taken with the We Do Not Care Club. (One of Sanders's recent posts has more than 50,000 comments.) Because if the first step is for women to give themselves permission to say no, the We Do Not Care Club is the no itself.
