NBC
NBC has confirmed that Taran Killam and Jay Pharoah are leaving the cast this coming season, Deadline reports.
The show says that the stars are leaving to pursue opportunities, but Uproxx spoke to Killam about the move, and he actually seemed suprirsed by the news.
"I don't know fully. I don't know the other side of it. You sign for seven years, so I had one more year. I had sort of had it in my head I would make this upcoming year my last year, but then heard they weren't going to pick up my contract," the actor said. "I was never given a reason why, really."
Then again, Killam was committed to directing a movie, "Why We're Killing Gunther" with Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose production schedule would've overlapped with his work on "SNL," so maybe the show made a decision to end things a bit early.
Killam has become a favorite of the "SNL" cast, and is widely used in its sketches, while Pharoah is often called upon to do impressions of figures like President Obama, Will Smith, and more.