Punkie Johnson Has Left Saturday Night Live Before Season 50

This fall, “Saturday Night Live” will be embarking on its 50th season, a major milestone for the late night sketch series that will include a massive celebration in the form of a 50th anniversary primetime special in February 2025. While it was believed that all of the cast members still hanging around the show at the end of season 49 would return for the landmark season 50, at least one cast member recently revealed that they won’t be back after all.

According to LateNighter, cast member Punkie Johnson will not be back for season 50 at “SNL.” Johnson made the announcement rather unceremoniously during a stand-up comedy show at Brooklyn’s Union Hall on the evening of July 31, and several audience members posted about her comments on social media afterwards. LateNighter took the initiative to reach out to Johnson on the morning of August 1, and she confirmed her departure from the series, where she’s been a repertory cast member since 2022, after joining the show as a featured player for season 46 in 2021.

One Twitter user attending the show wrote, “Punkie is leaving SNL, she said this was fine to share online, so I guess twitter is the first to know. It definitely wasn’t a joke either, like, she’s actually gone, and she’s very happy about it.” However, during the show, Johnson also mentioned some troubling details as to why she ended up leaving the show, and it sounds very typical of the reputation of “SNL” behind the scenes.

In a follow-up post on Twitter, the same user added, “She also said the issues sort of started when she was told to lose her dreads and stop getting buff…” That’s rather frustrating, especially when Johnson became the first openly queer Black woman to join the “SNL” cast. But the show has long had a trend of bringing in cast members of various racial backgrounds without being able to successfully utilize their diverse and unique cultural perspectives.

“SNL” often pushes comedians of color into certain archetypes or uses them as token minority casting because they need a diverse cast to offer the sight of something other than white. That’s not to say that certain cast members haven’t found great success on “SNL,” but more often than not, they don’t get a fair shake at the spotlight. That’s why Vera Drew’s indie comedy “The People’s Joker” focuses on a story that’s basically about comedy institutions like “SNL” and the Upright Citizens Brigade (where a lot of “SNL” cast members cut their teeth) destroying comedy dreams for anyone that doesn’t fit into a certain type for the screen.

Coincidentally enough, I caught a stand-up comedy show this summer with “SNL” cast members James Austin Johnson, Andrew Dismukes, and Devon Walker. During Walker’s set, the comedian briefly riffed on his time at “SNL” and mentioned how difficult it was for him, even going so far as to say that the best advice he could offer for being successful at “SNL” was to be white. So this is not a singular experience.

While Punkie Johnson never really got a chance to deliver any trademark recurring characters, she still had plenty of standout moments on the show. One of my favorites, which you can watch above, gave her a rather endearing appearance alongside Mikey Day at the Weekend Update desk. This is where a lot of stand-ups get the opportunity to really come out of their shell and show who they are on stage, and in this case, we got to see that Johnson is hilariously clueless about pop culture while talking about the 2023 Oscars nominees. Honestly, I wish we got to see this bit pop up at the desk a couple more times before she left. 

However, my favorite performance from Johnson might have been in this sketch:

In this sketch, featuring surprisingly great host Bad Bunny, Johnson plays a bit supporting character on the set of a Spanish-language soap opera, but she absolutely cannot speak the language. The way Johnson incoherently rambles off actual Spanish is so damn funny, and the way she meanders through the scene is hilarious. Johnson may not have landed any recurring characters or impressions on the show, but she was not without her own moments of great laughter.

If Johnson isn’t returning for season 50, it makes me wonder if she’ll make an appearance at the 50th anniversary celebration. Surely all former cast members are invited, and there’s probably a good one-liner to be written about quitting the show before the big party. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens in 2025.