Fred Armisen Says He Left ‘Saturday Night Live’ In May
Fred Armisen let us know he was leaving Saturday Night Live back in May — we just couldn’t hear him. “I think it’s clear. I didn’t do any kind of official announcements, but I really felt like it was obvious,” he said in an interview with Splitsider, making us feel pretty silly for wondering all these weeks. He’s referencing the May 18 SNL season wrapper, in which the final sketch featured him, Bill Hader, Jason Sedeikis and Taran Killam as Brit rockers on the final night of their tour. Another clue we missed: Armisen’s Portlandia co-star Carrie Brownstein was among the musicians onstage. Armisen, in Friday’s interview, called it “an ending that was a love letter to all the music I grew up with, and also to my friends and to SNL and to [exec producer] Lorne [Michaels] and to the cast.” Armisen said he left, after 11 years on the NBC late-night show, because it put him in good company: Hader was leaving, and Kristen Wiig and Andy Samberg had left. And, besides, Portlandia was taking more of his time. Plus, he explained, it was “just a feeling.”
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