KC’s Heidi Gardner leaves ‘Saturday Night Live’ after 8 seasons in cast shakeup
Kansas City’s favorite funny woman, Heidi Gardner, a Notre Dame de Sion graduate who became a national name on “Saturday Night Live,” is leaving the show after eight seasons, various news outlets reported Thursday.
Gardner was the longest-tenured female cast member last season when the show celebrated a landmark 50 years. She appears to be part of a cast shakeup that “SNL” producers have yet to explain.
Colleagues Michael Longfellow, Emil Wakim and Devon Walker departed this week. Walker wrote on Instagram that getting the call he wouldn’t be returning after three years was “a gut punch.”
As of Thursday evening, Gardner had not commented publicly.
In a February podcast interview with Craig Ferguson, Gardner said she was still enjoying her time on the show, but admitted she had “started to feel a little bit (of) just sketch fatigue, or idea fatigue.”
“SNL” fans will remember her for many memorable characters, but to Kansas City Chiefs supporters, Gardner will always be the diehard Chiefs fan who helped score Travis Kelce a hosting gig on the show in March 2023.
It was a pivotal moment for the tight end, engaged this week to Taylor Swift, who showed the world that night that he could hold his own with veteran funny people in front of a national audience.
Like Sudeikis, Gardner repped Kansas City on the show by wearing team gear, mostly Chiefs stuff, on camera. That hometown loyalty extended to Big Slick when she was asked to join as a permanent co-host in 2023 and brought “SNL” colleagues to Kansas City for the event.
Gardner now joins fellow Big Slick co-host Jason Sudeikis as an “SNL” veteran. The “Ted Lasso” star, who spent his childhood in Overland Park, also spent eight seasons on the show, leaving in 2013.
Fellow Big Slick host Rob Riggle, who also grew up in Johnson County, was a featured player on the show in the 2004-05 season.
Gardner has spent the summer in Kansas City, filming an independent movie in Belton, Missouri, and celebrating her birthday with one of her fabulous signature parties, this year with help from Kansas City Ballet dancers.
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Earlier this month she told Woman’s World how special it was to help “Saturday Night Live” celebrate 50 years with one celebrity-filled show after another.
“I really feel like I will be processing it for the next 50 years,” she said. “It was so packed into eight months.
“We started off the year with Dana Carvey playing President Biden and that’s enough for me for two years. Just meeting Dana Carvey would have been enough.
“But then it was, like, the 50th! It was election season and Kamala Harris was there, but we also did the whole anniversary. There was an anniversary concert and I saw Nirvana play with Post Malone. I saw Cher sing ‘Turn Back Time,’ and that was before the 50th special even aired.
“At a certain point I was like, ‘Y’all, this is too much.’ Like, this is making my brain explode. It’s too much celebration, too much partying in the best way.”
In that interview, she didn’t sound like someone on the verge of leaving the historic sketch-comedy show. She said she hoped the new season would be “wild, free, explorative and experimental.”
“There were so many things we needed to hit for the 50th to honor the people, the cast and the music, so I feel like Season 51 should be like ‘SNL’ unhinged,” she said.
The highlights of her tenure include portraying Kim Kardashian, helping in a parody of Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso,” playing Michael Jordan’s security guard and hysterically breaking character during a “Beavis and Butt-Head Skit” with Ryan Gosling.
Her recurring characters included Baskin Johns, Brie Bacardi, teen movie critic Bailey Gismert and Angel, “every boxer’s girlfriend from every movie about boxing ever.”
News of her departure incited quick, negative feedback from fans on social media.
Several complained that she didn’t get to say goodbye at the end of last season. All likely feel that “Saturday Night Live” without Heidi Gardner will most definitely feel unhinged.
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