Punkie Johnson’s exit from Saturday Night Live may have come as a surprise to fans, but Johnson herself says she saw it coming.
The former SNL repertory player opened up about her journey at the show—and eventual departure after last season—in a new interview with LateNighter’s podcast partner the Saturday Night Network.
Johnson first joined SNL as a featured player for Season 46 in 2020. After two years, she was upped to repertory status, where she put in two more years before exiting.
“I didn’t know what I was doing the whole four years,” Johnson said, explaining that starting under COVID protocols made it hard to form friendships. As things behind the scenes went back to normal for the next season, Johnson’s second year felt like another first as she re-learned the ropes. “So the first two years, I was new,” she said.
After a third season where she “went numb,” Johnson recalls “having a fantastic year” in her fourth season. She credits that to working with SNL writer Ben Silva.
“Ben knew how to talk Punkie,” Johnson said. Silva had joined the writing staff in Season 47—Johnson’s second year. Working with Ben, Johnson says she got “six sketches on in a row.”
But after Silva left the show eight episodes into Season 49, Johnson said she could see the writing on the wall. “Once everybody has those built-in relationships, it’s very hard to, in the middle of the season, just invade that,” she told SNN.
After Season 49, Johnson says she and reps from the show had an amicable meeting of the minds. “It was mutual,” Johnson recalled. “It was like a firing and a quitting all at the same time.”
Word of Johnson’s departure came this summer when the comedian revealed the news onstage at a show. Johnson later uploaded an Instagram video of her own explaining the exit, telling fans “It’s no bad blood. It’s no bridges burnt.”
Indeed, it sounds like Johnson only has positive feelings about her time in Studio 8H. “For four years, every single day that I walked through that building, I absolutely couldn’t believe that I was there,” she told SNN. “I appreciate every single piece of it… I was with the big dogs.”
