Is Cecily Strong done with “Saturday Night Live”? Not at all. But she wasn’t in this week’s Season 48 premiere (we’ll explain why momentarily), and fans worried that she might have pulled a stealth exit after she was completely absent from the new opening credits.
The end of “Saturday Night Live” Season 47 saw a large exodus of longtime cast members, including Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant and Pete Davidson, among others. But that list didn’t include Cecily Strong, who has been with the show since 2012.
But she’s still with the show. Individuals with knowledge of the matter confirm that Strong is on haitus while starring in a production of the one-woman play ”The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe,” which opened earlier this week on Sept. 28 at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. She’ll be back on “SNL” in November.
That doesn’t mean people aren’t still wondering what the deal is. For example:
This season would mark Strong’s 11th with “SNL,”making her one of the longest-running cast members on the show. Thanks to her impressions of Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and her strong advocacy for abortion rights and feminism, she’s become a beloved fixture on the sketch comedy series.
Strong earned particularly strong praise late last year, after she appeared as Goober the Clown on “Weekend Update” to discuss abortion rights, and her own abortion. You can watch that moment here.