When Kanye West last appeared on Saturday Night Live, he delivered a rant regarding his support for Donald Trump. Notably, those onstage with Ye started to look uncomfortable, including host Adam Driver and Kenan Thompson, who quietly slipped off when he clocked what was happening.
In an appearance on Ebro in the Morning on Hot 97, Kenan Thompson opened up about why he decided to leave the stage during the infamous moment.
"Do you recall the Kanye West night?" Kenan was asked.
"Thoroughly," the show's longest-running cast member immediately responded. Thompson also admitted with a laugh that he dipped when Kanye had his rant. "I mean, if you're a fan of hip-hop you know him, so you know," he explained. "It's a moment in the show where it's like, sometimes they'll do a last song over the good night credits or whatever. So, you know...U2 did it, McCartney did it, and they actually like go to the other stage and get with they band and do a whole performance. When I saw that he was standing on the regular stage I was like, oh he's just gonna take a moment and have a moment basically."
Ultimately, Kenan said he wanted to be able to watch it from afar, which is why he decided to leave. "Yeah, I think I would like to watch this on TV, and I got lucky because it became extremely uncomfortable extremely quickly. ... I was also tired as hell, it's a long day." He did, however, have sympathy for Kanye. "But god bless him, I felt bad."
Additionally, Kenan shot down Kanye's claims that he was being "bullied" into not wearing his MAGA hat backstage at SNL. "I'm not trying to overly promote somebody that's getting impeached, but each man's prerogative I guess," he added.
Earlier in the interview Thompson talked about Eddie Murphy's return to hosting week, expressing just how excited he is. "We had our table read yesterday, and I got to hear him doing voices...It is crazy, like, I'm sitting right next to the host or whatever," he said. "This week it happens to be one of my biggest heroes."
Watch the full interview above.
