Chris Redd now says he was simply being “facetious” in a recent Instagram video where he spoke of “selling [drugs] to some of my castmates” at Saturday Night Live.
Redd joined NBC’s iconic sketch comedy program ahead of the 43rd season in 2017, and served as a cast member for five seasons. He departed before Season 48 in 2022.
Redd back on January 6 posted to Instagram an emotional video that he framed as an effort to be “a lot more vulnerable and open” about a period of personal turmoil during his time on SNL—including the relationship (with cast member Kenan Thompson‘s ex-wife, Christina Evangeline) that he claims ultimately cost him his job.
“While I was at [SNL] I had some pill issues, I had some pill problems,” Redd shared in that six-minute video. “I was even selling some to some of my castmates,” he claimed, before quickly adding, “I’m not gonna snitch on y’all motherf*ckers, man.”
Eight days after posting that Instagram video, though, Redd recontextualized the drug-dealing claim, when TMZ chased him down in New York City.
“I was on Adderall and Xanax” during that SNL stretch, Redd clarified, “and I was getting it the illegal way [without a prescription] because I was scared to go to the doctor and have them say I’m crazy.”
That said, “I was being facetious about the drug dealing thing,” he told TMZ. “I wasn’t drug dealing to my cast, I wasn’t ‘Walter White-ing.’
“I was trying to make light of it because I was feel super vulnerable and raw at the time,” he explained. “I was not selling; I had a full-time job as a comic.”
Redd noted that “the drug history of SNL“—which has been well-documented over the decades on both page and screen—”was there before I was there,” but “I had nothing to do with that.… I didn’t think people was gonna take [my comment] serious.”
