How Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell Finally Squashed Their Years-Long Beef

Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell recently reunited for Good Burger 2, the sequel to their beloved 1997 comedy that came out last month a whopping 26 years after the original. The reconciliation between the pair, who first met on the Nickelodeon sketch comedy series All That in the '90s, was a long time coming. But first they had to mend a decades-long personal and professional falling out.

However, as Thompson told Hoda Kotb on Today Monday morning, it turns out the beef between the two stars ended up being overblown in the end.

"It was more of a separation that kind of grew into the traditional terms of what a falling out is, which is like not a lot of communication," the 45-year-old explained.

"Originally, it was just us kind of looking for our own individualism, basically, as adults, and kind of just taking a breather from being a duo, because we both came into the game as individuals," Thompson recalled, of what led up to the split. "We were placed together because we worked so well together on All That. And it was just a journey of being adults and you know, time passes and more time passes and it just became ridiculous."

When he finally worked up the nerve to reach out to his old partner, Thompson said that they played phone tag for "like a day," and then both apologized once they got on the phone.

"When you have a real friendship, it was five minutes into the phone call, we were back," he continued. "It was like, what were we waiting on all this time? But like, you just never really know until you actually have that talk."

As Kotb then pointed out, there's a good lesson to learn from Thompson and Mitchell's squashed beef, as many people who find themselves embroiled in feuds don't even remember why. As always, it's better late than never.

"And it’s also like time wasted, which is one of the biggest crimes I think you can do in life, is just waste time," Thompson added. "So it feels so good to be back with my brother and the movie is doing well. We’re so appreciative, looking forward to the next chapters."