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Bowen Yang couldn’t quite hold it together for his final Saturday Night Live sketch — but he still got some TLC from Ariana Grande and Cher.
Yang, 35, teared up during a holiday travel-themed sketch on Saturday, December 20, as Grande, 32, and Cher, 79, serenaded him with the festive classic “Please Come Home for Christmas.” The sketch referenced Yang’s real-life departure from Saturday Night Live as he played a Delta Sky Club employee joined by old friends on his last-ever shift.
“I can’t believe you’re retiring,” Grande told him, with Yang explaining: “I just wanted to go out on top!”
Grande’s character then quipped: “Everyone knows you’re a bottom, honey!”
As the trio continued to sing, both Yang and Grande got choked up and eventually started to cry. Yang’s bittersweet final sketch closed with him pulling Grande and Cher into a hug as he bawled.
Earlier in the night, Yang joined his Wicked: For Good costar Grande for a sendup of Mariah Carey’s festive classic “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” now retitled “What Do I Get for Christmas for This Dude” as an ode to the perils of holiday gift buying.
News broke on Friday, December 19, that Yang planned to leave SNL after its annual Christmas show, featuring Grande as host and Cher as musical guest.
Yang opened up about his time on the show in a poignant goodbye note before showtime on Saturday. He looked back on joining SNL just as the COVID-19 pandemic started in late 2019 and credited the show with teaching him “the value in showing up anyway when people make it worthwhile.”
Bowen Yang and Ariana Grande perform with “Saturday Night Live” cast. Courtesy NBC
“I’m grateful for every minute of my time there. I learned about myself (bad with wigs). I learned about others (generous, vulnerable, hot). I learned that human error can be nothing but correct,” he recalled. “I learned that comedy is mostly logistics and that it will usually fail until it doesn’t, which is the besssst.”
Yang then thanked his many friends at SNL, adding: “Thank you to every single person who showed up there: friends and coworkers and audiences and hosts … Thank you to every cast member for making me laugh and cry.”
There had been speculation that Yang would leave the NBC sketch show in May when he was seen wistfully dancing with fellow cast member Sarah Sherman during the season 50 finale’s goodnights segment.
Wicked costars Ariana Grande and Bowen Yang proved besties do it better during the Saturday, October 12, episode of Saturday Night Live. Grande, 31, returned to host Saturday’s episode — her second time emceeing the variety show after 2016 — where she showed off her enduring bond with Yang, 33. (Grande and Yang, of course, […]
However, Yang decided to come back for season 51, explaining that SNL creator Lorne Michaels personally encouraged him to stick around.
“I’ve always gone by the instinct of, do I have more to do? And I feel like I do,” Yang told People in September. “Even Lorne and I talked about it, and Lorne was like, ‘You have more to do,’ and that means a lot, because I even confessed to him. I was like, ‘I feel the audience is maybe getting sick of me.’ And he was like, ‘That’s not true. There’s more for you to do. I need you.’”
Yang went on, “I have to honor that. That man has changed my life, and I owe a lot of my life to that show. And I love working there, the people are the best. I really love each of them so much.”
Prior to his exit, Yang missed an SNL season 51 episode in October to accept the Vantage Award at an Academy Museum of Motion Pictures gala held at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles.
Saturday Night Live returns on NBC January 17, 2026, at 11:30 p.m. ET with Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard as host and ASAP Rocky as musical guest.
