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Saturday Night Live cast member Chloe Fineman will exit the show after seven seasons, the comedian announced Thursday on Instagram, ahead of the upcoming 52nd season this fall.
Fineman’s exit follows a 50th-season “shakeup” in 2025 that saw the departures of several comedians: Heidi Gardner, Michael Longfellow, Devon Walker, Ego Nwodim and Emil Wakim. They were replaced for the 51st season by Tommy Brennan, Jeremy Culhane, Kam Patterson, Please Don’t Destroy‘s Ben Marshall and Canadian performer Veronika Slowikowska.
The 51st season had not seen any major cast departures since the finale earlier this year, though fellow cast member Bowen Yang left midway through the season in December 2025.
“It’s really hard to leave SNL but it does feel like the right time,” Fineman wrote in her Instagram caption. “I’m going to miss it a lot. But the people who work there are my family and that place is my home, and I know I’ll never be too far away.”
Fineman was hired in 2019 alongside Yang and short-lived cast member Shane Gillis, who was dismissed days later.
Over the show’s tenure, the cast has shifted toward including more long-serving members. While cast members used to depart after roughly six or seven seasons, this year’s cast included six who had been on the show for six or more seasons.
Along with Fineman, they included Kenan Thompson, who has been on the show for a record-breaking 23 seasons, Colin Jost with 13, Michael Che with 12, Mikey Day with 10 and Andrew Dismukes with six.
Gardner had been the longest-running female cast member before her exit. When Nwodim left as well, Fineman became the longest-tenured woman on SNL. But creator Lorne Michaels had previously said the show was due for changes after its 50th anniversary.
Of the cast members who left, Walker, Wakim and Longfellow appeared to suggest their departures may not have been their own choice.
Walker’s social media post compared entertainment work to marriages: “Some of ’em last for a long time if we’re lucky, but most of them are fleeting.”
“Will not be returning for a fourth season at SNL. Wish I was but, so it goes,” Longfellow wrote.
Wakim described what it felt like to learn he would not be returning.
“It was a gut punch of a call to get,” he wrote on Instagram, explaining that he learned the news while at a friend’s birthday party at Six Flags.
“Went on a really emotional walk through Bugs Bunny Park and stared out across Daffy Duck Lake thinking about life.”
Comedian and actor
During her time on SNL, Fineman earned a reputation for her impressions of personalities including Melania Trump, Timothée Chalamet, Britney Spears and Drew Barrymore, as well as a series of social media videos impersonating the Australian Olympic breakdancer Raygun.
Since joining SNL, Fineman has also made a name for herself as an actor. She appeared alongside Adam Driver in both 2022’s White Noise and 2024’s Megalopolis, as well as 2024’s Despicable Me 4 and 2025’s Freakier Friday.
She is slated to star in Love Language alongside Chloë Grace Moretz, and The Dink with Jake Johnson, Ben Stiller, Mary Steenburgen and Ed Harris.
