Posted in: NBC, Peacock, TV | Tagged: saturday night live, snl

SNL 50: Morgan Wallen Addresses Controversy Surrounding Show Exit

Country Music star Morgan Wallen is looking to downplay the controversy surrounding his SNL end-of-show exit from earlier this season.

By now, we all remember the drama that went down between NBC's Saturday Night Live and musical guest Morgan Wallen regarding how he exited the show during the "goodnights." As if exiting via the front of the stage while the show was still on the air wasn't questionable enough, Wallen's subsequent "Get me to God's country" post (full backstory below) following his departure didn't do much to quite the rumblings that Wallen wasn't happy with SNL. Since that time, SNL has referenced the incident, both directly (like Kenan Thompson's interview below) and during the show. For his part, Wallen has remained silent on the matter (save for making a few bucks with some "Get Me to God's Country" merch) – until now.

Checking in with comedian Caleb Pressley's podcast (which you can check out above), Wallen was asked about his skills at fixing things around the home. When asked if he could fix a TV "if it was on SNL," Wallen laughed and responded, "I could change it for sure." That led to Wallen being asked about what went down two months prior. "Seriously, SNL, did they make you mad?" Pressley asked. "No, no, I was just ready to go home. I been there all week," Wallen responded, looking to downplay the rumblings that there were bad vibes in play.

SNL & Morgan Wallen: A Brief History

Our really brief history of SNL and Wallen begins about five years ago. During Season 46, Wallen was set to be the musical guest alongside host Bill Burr, but that changed when a TikTok video of the country music artist at a house party minus a mask began circulating on social media, disregarding COVID precautions and regulations. In the video, Wallen was seen doing shots in a crowded party where social distancing and masks were not in play and also seen kissing an unmasked woman. Wallen would go on to apologize for what went down, and SNL EP Lorne Michaels would invite Wallen back as the musical guest later that same season during the December 5, 2020, show hosted by Jason Bateman.

Now, we're jumping to this weekend. Musically, Wallen offered strong performances of "I'm the Problem" and "Just in Case" – and overall, everything seemed pretty normal. But things got weird during the goodnight just before and while the credits were rolling. First, there was distance between Madison and Wallen and the rest of the cast. Then, you had Wallen say a few words to Madison – without ever turning his attention to the SNL cast behind him. But the real headline-grabber was how Wallen exited – from the front of the stage and walking towards the camera. It was an odd way for something as simple as a "goodnight" to go down, vibing as if Wallen either suddenly got lost or was looking to get away from SNL sooner rather than later.

Did Wallen have issues with the SNL cast and writers? Were there some other issues at play? TMZ – and other sites – reported that folks close to Wallen said it was all much ado about nothing. Not helping their argument was Wallen's Instagram Stories post shortly after he exited stage right: "Get me to God's country," along with an image of a private jet.

So we decided to jump on Peacock and take a look back at December 2020 to see if Wallen's behavior during the goodnight and end credits was similar to what went down last night. It wasn't. After friendly greetings between Wallen and Bateman, you see Wallen turning his attention to the SNL cast – and the SNL cast reciprocates. In fact, it's your typically nice end that we usually get, with Wallen sticking around on the stage as the network cut to whatever local affiliates were running at 1 pm ET. To be clear, there was no sign indicating that Wallen exited by walking down off the front of the stage.

Kenan Thompson on Morgan Wallen Walking, "God's Country" Post

Speaking with EW exclusively while promoting his "GERD Is No Joke" campaign with Phathom Pharmaceuticals, Thompson shared that he was left wondering what was going on with Wallen, just like everyone else. "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," Thompson said. Confirming that he "definitely saw it" (with many views noting that it appeared as if Thompson and Ego Nwodim were reacting to watch Wallen walk away), Thompson noted that the move was definitely not how the goodnight usually goes down.

"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," Thompson added. "It's definitely a spike in the norm. We're so used to everybody just turning around and high-fiving us, everybody's saying, 'Good job, good job, good job.' So when there's a departure from that, it's like, 'Hmm, I wonder what that's about?'" In terms of his interactions with Wallen, Thompson shared that he "never met" Wallen, either this past weekend or during his first appearance in December 2020. "Seems like a complicated individual, I guess," Thompson added.

It wasn't the first time that Thompson experienced an SNL musical guest who had issues connecting with the SNL team, noting that "Prince did the same thing" (before adding, "I'm not saying Morgan Wallen is Prince"). But for Thompson, the key difference was the SNL team knew going in that Prince was an artist who generally kept to himself or to the universe of people he traveled with and kept around him. "We weren't surprised because Prince was notoriously kind of standoffish. It's just how he was. So we just thought like, 'Okay, now he's gone back into fantasyland," Thompson explained. "But Saturday I guess it was just different because it just felt so abrupt. And it was already such a small grouping on the stage anyway. So it was just like, oh wow, that was pretty visible. You know what I'm saying? It was a pretty visible thing."

As for Wallen's Instagram post showing his jet that included the message, "Get me to God's country," let's just say that Thompson didn't sound like a big fan of it. "The 'God's country' of it all is strange because it's like, what are you trying to say? You trying to say that we are not in God's country? We're not all in God's country? We're not all under God's umbrella? That's not necessarily my favorite," Thompson shared. "But whatever. Moving on, we got a new show. We got Jack Black this week. We're here talking about GERD. We will be fine."

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