This upcoming season of Saturday Night Live might not just be a celebration of their 40th anniversary, it could also be the end of an era. After 11 seasons on the show, Kenan Thompson is reportedly calling it quits after this year, according to TMZ.
Thompson, who holds the record for being the show's longest-tenured African-American cast member, apparently wanted to leave at the end of last season, until NBC late night overlord Lorne Michaels convinced him to hang on for one more year. The All That-to-SNL success story has a new show in the works, TMZ reports, and is also planning to move to Los Angeles with his wife, with whom he just had a baby in June.
If this turns out to be true, expect this season of SNL (starting on Sept. 27) to look a whole lot like Derek Jeter's last season as a Yankee. That's the sort of send-off iconic characters like Whoopi Goldberg, Charles Barkley, and DeAndre Cole deserve.
UPDATE: An SNL spokesperson has said that the TMZ report is inaccurate, as the season hasn’t even started and casting decisions aren’t made until the end of the season.
[via TMZ]
