Cecily Strong said her goodbyes to Saturday Night Live this past weekend. Since the start of the season, there have been some rumors about Strong's exit from the show, but nothing has been confirmed until now. During last Saturday night's episode, with Austin Butler as the host, the seasoned SNL star sadly announced it would be her last night standing on the NBC stage.
Long-time SNL fans already took quite the hit when 8 of the show's best comedians decided to leave before season 48 got started, and now we've hit the unlucky number 9 with Cecily. After 11 hilarious seasons on the sketch comedy show, we say goodbye to our favorite Melania impersonator as she moves on to new endeavors. However, her departure came as a shock to fans when the show's Twitter page announced her exit hours before the show aired. "Tonight we send off one of the best to ever do it. We'll miss you, Cecily!" the post read.
During the episode, Cecily starred as one of her most well-known characters, Cathy Anne, who often tells hilarious stories to Michael Che and Colin Jost at the Weekend Update desk; when she broke the news, she was "here to say goodbye." When Che asked her, Strong jokingly responded, "turns out, prison," and that she has "friends on the inside," followed by a photo of former SNL cast members Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant in orange prison uniforms. "Everybody has to go to jail at some point, and it's just my time now, but I feel really lucky that I got to spend so many of the best moments of my life with these people that I love so much," she gushed.
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We love you, Cecily pic.twitter.com/XmQUpOOqgD
— Saturday Night Live - SNL (@nbcsnl) December 18, 2022
Now that the news is out, Cecily took to her Instagram to announce why she decided to keep her decision private until the last moments. "I'm sorry I've been a little quiet about it publicly," she wrote. "I didn't want the extra pressure on something already so emotional for me." The SNL alum wrote, "I am ready to go, but I'll always know home is here." The episode ended with a heartfelt goodbye from the cast singing Elvis Presley's Blue Christmas with the "absolute kind and generous dreamboat" Austin Butler. As much as we're going to miss Strong, we can't wait to see where she goes next! Stay tuned.
