Melissa Villaseñor Explains She Left ‘SNL’ to Focus on ‘My Mental Health’ After Panic Attacks
Amid a mass exodus of longtime “SNL” cast members over the summer, one of the most unexpected was Melissa Villaseñor, the show’s ace celebrity impersonator and one of the most reliable laugh-getters during her 2016-2022 tenure.
Aside from the announcement of her departure, no further details were provided, leaving fans to wonder why she bolted. But in a new interview with The Daily Beast’s “Last Laugh” podcast, Villaseñor revealed that her exit was amicable and was her choice — she had started suffering panic attacks due to stress and stepped away to focus on “my mental health.”
“Yeah, it was my decision. I gave myself a lot of time in the summer to think on it and kind of play out in my head if I go back,” Villaseñor told The Daily Beast. “At the end of the day it was about my mental health. Last season, I had a couple of panic attacks. I think it was just… I was struggling. I always felt like I was on the edge of a cliff every week. And I was like, I don’t want to be doing that to myself anymore.”
She clarified that she was never mistreated by anyone on the show, “It was just how I handle things. I think I’m an introvert. When I’m in a big group of a lot of amazing people, and everyone’s speaking over everyone else, I think I tend to get small. I get nervous, like, where do I fit? What am I supposed to do? That’s how I was in high school, too. And so I think that’s what caused it. And I was like, I think I’m OK. I feel like there’s nothing else that I feel like, oh, I need to be sharing this, I want to do this on the show. I think I’m ready. There was just something telling me, I think I could part ways.”
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Villaseñor added that thanks to the pandemic and how it affected the show, “that quarantine year in 2020 was really rough, too.”
She did wish the new cast members and her friends at “Saturday Night Live” well, and said she’ll “miss that magical feeling of, ‘I’m going live with something that I love, and I’m proud of and excited to play.’ That magical feeling of, ‘I can’t believe I’m on this show’ that would come every single time I would go out there and do a Weekend Update piece.”
But she said she won’t miss “the work schedule. And that pressure of every week coming up with something and trying to share it with a writer and be like, ‘Hey, what do you think of this?’ And that feeling of, ‘I don’t have time to help you like that,’ or ‘someone’s already writing that so you can’t write it.’ That feeling of, ‘OK, what else? What could I do?'”
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