Devon Walker has a full explanation for why he’s leaving “Saturday Night Live.”
“To be frank, I guess the best way I put it is like me and the show kind of looked at each other and we decided together that it was time to go our separate ways,” the comedian, 34, said in an interview with Rolling Stone published Saturday.
“I think I felt ready to leave the show, and I think the show felt ready to leave me,” Walker continued. “I was just ready to do something else. We both felt like it was time.”
The stand-up comic, who joined “SNL” in 2022, also noted that the show “was such a big time commitment, and life commitment.”
“There’s been a lot of life stuff that I feel like I’ve had to miss out on,” he shared. “And I felt ready to do a different version of my life. I think that me and the show are both ready to turn the page.”
Walker announced his exit from the sketch comedy series after three seasons last Monday.
Since then, fellow cast members Michael Longfellow, Emil Wakim and Heidi Gardner have also announced their departures, after creator Lorne Michaels confirmed the show would be getting a shakeup for Season 51.
In his Instagram announcement, Walker said that sometimes working on the show “was toxic as hell.”
“But we did what we made the most of what it was, even amidst all of the dysfunction,” he wrote. “We made a f–ked up lil family.”
During his Rolling Stone interview, Walker explained that he’s “grateful” for the close bonds he made with other cast members on “SNL.”
“It’s like a fraternity on a certain level,” he said. “I might see, like, Adam Sandler, you know, and he’s talking about how there’s a shorthand. Even though he went through the show 30 years before I ever got there, we know what it is. There’s just an understanding that anybody who’s ever worked there will always share.”
Walker also gushed over his professional relationship with Michaels, 80.
“The best part of working with Lorne was probably getting hired by him,” Walker admitted. “It’s true. Something about, the same guy that handpicked these people that I’m a big fan of — the Will Ferrells, the Sandlers, the Tracy Morgans, the Tina Feys — the same person who decided on these folks, also picked me. To me, that vote of confidence is something that I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life.”
Walker went on to say that he’s “genuinely very excited” for his post-“SNL” career and reiterated that getting to be on the show “was such a blessing.”
“I was never even training to do that thing. That’s just like a God thing, a fortunate happenstance that I ended up getting to be on that show,” he explained. “I’m proud of a lot of the work that I did on there, but wait till people get to see the stuff that I really want to do.”
