Morgan Wallen has spoken out about his controversial exit on Saturday Night Live.
After his episode of SNL came to an end on March 29, Wallen hugged host Mikey Madison and abruptly walked off the stage, even though the end credits were still rolling.
He was criticized for leaving the broadcast early while the cast and Madison were saying the customary farewells to each other on stage, per the weekly sketch show’s tradition.
Wallen spoke out about the viral incident during the latest episode of Sundae Conversations with Caleb Pressley. After Pressley asked Wallen if he could “fix a TV, if it was on SNL,” the country singer responded: “I could change it for sure.”
Pressley then alluded to the singer’s decision to walk off the show in March, asking: “Seriously, SNL, did they make you mad?”
The “Cowgirls” singer responded: “No. I was ready to go home. I’d been there all week.”
Pressley mentioned Wallen’s viral Instagram Story after SNL ended, which featured a picture of the singer’s private plane alongside the caption: “Get me to God’s Country.”
“Yeah,” Wallen responded while smiling, electing not to elaborate further.
After Wallen’s appearance on the NBC program, a source close to him told Variety in April that his abrupt exit had not been an intentional slight, and that he enjoyed his stint on SNL, performing two songs (“I’m the Problem” and “Just in Case”) from his album, One Thing at a Time.
The source also claimed that Wallen had exited the stage the same way during rehearsals, and that he may not have been thinking about the camera during his departure live on air.
SNL cast members Kenan Thompson and Bowen Yang later weighed in on the viral moment. While co-hosting Today with Jenna & Friends on April 7, Yang said that Wallen’s exit wasn’t an important topic of discussion among the SNL cast.
“This is the God’s honest truth: Nothing happened, and so even after it happened, we all just showed up to work the next day because it’s like, you’ve just got to move on to the next thing,” he said.
Thompson agreed with his colleague, saying he wished people would have given more “props to Madison because she had a great show.”
However, during an interview with Entertainment Weekly published on March 31, Thompson confessed that he didn’t know why Wallen exited the stage in that manner.
“I don't know what goes through people's minds when they decide to do stuff like that. I don't know if he understood the assignment or not, or if he was really feeling a certain kind of way,” he said. “You see somebody before you get a chance to say hi or say good job or anything like that, they just dipping. I thought maybe he had to go to the potty or something.”
During the April 5 episode of SNL, the show’s regular sketch Weekend Update made another dig at Wallen.
Speaking about the devastating impact the trade tariffs have had on the economy, Colin Jost joked: “Just in the past two days, investors have lost over $6 trillion. Money is leaving the stock faster than Morgan Wallen at ‘Good night.’”
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