Taran Killam Talks His SNL Ouster: 'I Honestly Don't Know What Happened'

If you’re looking for a reason that Taran Killam was let go from Saturday Night Live well before the end of his contract, don’t expect him to be able to explain it to you.

As TVLine exclusively reported Monday, neither Killam nor fellow Not Ready for Primetime Player Jay Pharoah will be part of the series’ cast when Season 42 premieres later this year.

Killam recently told Uproxx that NBC’s long-running late-night series decided not to pick up the final year of his seven-season contract, but he’s not sure why. “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,” he said. “I was never given a reason why, really.”

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Killam mentioned that he’s directing the film Why We’re Killing Gunther, and that some of the post-production process on the movie would have coincided with SNL‘s production schedule.

“I honestly don’t know what happened on the other side, but I do know we had expressed I have work on this film and in bonding this picture, that has to get cleared with SNL,” he said.

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In the end, he added, “my feeling about it is I got my dream job. I set out to be on SNL and I got to do that and I did very well. And I love and adore and will forever have close ties and tight bonds with the brilliant, smartest, funniest people I’ve ever met in my life. So, I have no gripes at all.”

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