Seth Meyers says rumors of Lorne Michaels exiting “Saturday Night Live” are 'a false narrative'

The "Late Night" host added that the longtime "SNL" exec has "a flair for the dramatic."

Seth Meyers thinks rumors of Lorne Michaels' departure from Saturday Night Live are greatly exaggerated.

In a recent interview with Mike Birbiglia on his podcast Working It Out, the Late Night host suggested that Michaels' previous musings about leaving his post as the head honcho at SNL are nothing but talk.

After Birbiglia asked Meyers, "Are you gonna take over for Lorne, or is it Tina [Fey] and then you?" the former SNL head writer responded, "I think this is a false narrative that Lorne is going anywhere."

Meyers, who worked on SNL from 2001 to 2014, continued to speculate that Michaels' supposed plans to exit the series after its 50th anniversary in 2025 have little foundation. "I think it made sense for Lorne — who's, yeah, got a flair for the dramatic — to say, 'I think I’'l be done at 50,'" he explained. "It's not like Lorne's got something else he wants to do more than this."

"So you think it's Kenan [Thompson]?" Birbiglia jokingly asked.

"I think it's Kenan," Meyers sarcastically confirmed.

Michaels has repeatedly teased his potential retirement after the show turns 50. "We're doing the 50th anniversary show in February of '25, so I will definitely be there for that, and definitely be there until that, and sometime before that we’ll figure out what we’re gonna do," Michaels told Entertainment Tonight at the Emmys in January. In that same interview, Michaels told the outlet his successor "could easily be Tina Fey, but you know, there are a lot of people who are there now who are also, you know…"

Michaels has led SNL under various titles — including writer, producer, and executive producer — since co-creating the show in 1975, aside from a five-year hiatus in the 1980s. Longtime cast member Thompson suggested that the show may not even have a reason to go on without Michaels. "He's the one that's had his touch on the whole thing," he said on Hell of a Week. "It opens the opportunity for a lot of bulls--- to come into the game because he's such a legend that he keeps off those corporate wolves."

Listen to Meyers' full Working It Out interview above.

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