Heidi Gardner\u2019s exit from Saturday Night Live may not have been her idea, according to a former cast member from the NBC sketch series.<\/p>\n
On hisFly on the Wall <\/a>podcast<\/a> with David Spade on Sept. 3, SNL veteran Dana Carvey said of Gardner, \u201cFrom what I know as of this recording, it was not her idea to leave. Now I could be wrong about that, but that\u2019s what I [read].\u201d<\/p>\n Spade noted that the thought of Gardner being fired from the show was \u201ca little shocking because she really is one of the core ones from that show, and she does a great job.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou never know, and it is a hard thing, but I was really, really surprised,\u201d Carvey said. \u201cI think she’s got a likability of, she can play real, straight newswoman, serious. She can play big, broad, funny physical. So I was surprised by that. She has finished a full eight seasons, which is which is right up there, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n On Aug. 28, Vulture reported<\/a> that Gardner, 42, would exit SNL ahead of Season 51. Other departing cast members include Devon Walker, Emil Wakim, and Michael Longfellow.<\/p>\n Ben Marshall, Veronika Slowikowska, Tommy Brennan, Jeremy Culhane, and Kam Patterson are joining SNL for Season 51.<\/p>\n Heidi Gardner Dropped Hints About Leaving \u2018SNL\u2019<\/p>\n Gardner, who first joined SNL as a featured player in 2017, was the show\u2019s longest-running female cast member. While she has not publicly commented on her departure from the show, the comedian had dropped hints that she was ready for something new.<\/p>\n In February, Gardner told Craig Ferguson\u2019s Joy podcast<\/a> that things had gotten a \u201clittle tough\u201d for her in the writers’ room. \u201cI will say the only thing that I\u2019ve started to feel a little bit is just sketch fatigue, or idea fatigue,\u201d she said at the time. \u201cAt this point, after doing Groundlings and SNL for so long, I\u2019m like, \u2018I\u2019ve written a lot of sketches.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI know whatever I do next, I\u2019d love to have a show that I co-star in and co-write, and it\u2019s a character and it\u2019s a world,\u201d she added. \u201cAnd it\u2019s a character I get to live in for a while and explore more.\u201d<\/p>\n Gardner did take on other roles during her time on SNL. She had a recurring role as Grace on the Apple TV+ series Shrinking, and appeared in Adam Sandler’s Netflix basketball film Hustle,per IMDb<\/a>. In 2024, Gardner also served as a judge on the competition series Second Chance Stage on HBO Max.<\/p>\n This story was originally reported by Men’s Journal<\/a> on Sep 4, 2025, where it first appeared in the Entertainment<\/a> section. Add Men’s Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heidi Gardner\u2019s exit from Saturday Night Live may not have been her idea, according to a former cast…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":207674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[185,24793,24794,171,103064,1747,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-207673","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-dana-carvey","10":"tag-david-spade","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-heidi-gardner","13":"tag-saturday-night-live","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115163187519422752","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}