Molly Kearney is also leaving Saturday Night Live
Kearney was the first nonbinary cast member to ever grace the Studio 8H stage
Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for Clusterfest
Saturday Night Live has lost another cast member ahead of its landmark 50th season. Molly Kearney—the series’ first-ever nonbinary player—announced their departure after two seasons in an Instagram post today. “Yall that’s a wrap on my time on SNL!” they wrote. “Reflecting on the amazing 2 seasons I got on this show, it was such a dream come true. So incredibly grateful for this period in my life.”
Like Punkie Johnson, who announced her departure yesterday, Kearney doesn’t seem to have any bad blood with Lorne Michaels or the rest of the SNL crew. “So much love to all my big hearted buddies behind the scenes who make the magic happen every week,” they continued in their post, which features a number of photos of Kearney with various members of the cast and crew. “So many bald caps, so little time. It was a true honor to work with such a talented group of writers and DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE CAST.”
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Kearney was featured in a number of very funny sketches during their tenure, including “Crown Your Short King” (a.k.a. the one where Chloe Fineman and Jacob Elordi make out), and “Morning Announcements,” in which they do a pretty spot-on Sister Michael from Derry Girls. They were also able to use their platform to powerful effect in a 2023 visit to the Weekend Update desk, during which they were literally dropped into the mix in a harness. “I’ve been hung up by my genitals for far too long, and I’m starting to feel like a freakin’ Republican lawmaker,” they quipped, before delivering a genuinely stirring monologue: “For some reason, there’s something about the word ‘trans’ that makes people forget the word ‘kids.’ If you don’t care about trans kids’ lives, it means you don’t care about freakin’ kids’ lives.” They ended the bit by proclaiming “trans rights!” while surrounded by pink, white, and blue confetti.
Kearney hasn’t announced what’s next for them yet, but they were congratulated on their run by fellow cast members and other favorites like Bowen Yang, Sarah Squirm, Heidi Gardner, and Quinta Brunson in the comments. Before SNL, the Cleveland-born comedian appeared in shows like A League Of Their Own and The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers.