Posted 54 minutes agoSubscribe to Screen Time NewsletterCaret Down30 Former "Saturday Night Live" Cast Members Who Revealed Why They REALLY Left The ShowAndy Samberg said, "It's basically like four days a week you're not sleeping, for seven years. So I just kinda fell apart physically."by Kristen HarrisBuzzFeed StaffFacebookPinterestLink Saturday Night Live has featured some pretty iconic performers over the years. Of course, they don't stay forever (except for Kenan Thompson). Some actors stay mum on why they quit or got fired, but many have been surprisingly candid! Here are 30 former SNL cast members who revealed why they left the show: 1. Seasons 44 to 50 cast member Ego Nwodim told Sherri, "It's like being in a marriage. I've never done it before, but that show was my longest relationship ever. I'm not a commitment-phobe, but I heard when you're married, you get the seven-year itch. And it's like, I wanna date other people! I wanna see some other privates! It felt like the time to make space for something else for me." NBC / Will Heath/NBC via Getty Images She also spoke about the importance of representation in the cast, saying, "I felt honored to be the seventh Black woman in that cast. I hope that there will be more Black women. Punkie Johnson came on the show after me. Who knows who else they'll find as they explore and seek out other talents? I do believe I represented a myriad of characters, different types of characters. Some people didn't always catch that nuance, but I do feel like I got the chance to represent, and that was really important to me." NBC / Will Heath/NBC via Getty Images 2. On the Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade podcast, Season 46 through 49 cast member Punkie Johnson said, "Mutually, we just understood that it was not my zone... I never grew up in sketch, I never went to sketch school, and I didn't really feel like I fit. [SNL] is for a different type of person." NBC / Lauren Clements/NBC via Getty Images She wanted to leave after Season 48, but her team convinced her to stay on because she didn't have a plan. On the next season, she was "killing it" with the help of writer Ben Silva, who "knew how to speak Punkie." However, she "spiraled" after he left. She said, "I opened up the floor [on Instagram] for questions, and everything was going fine until somebody asked, 'What are you looking forward to most next season?' I ain't gonna lie to my friends, so I just said, 'Oh, I ain't coming back.'" NBC / Colin Cauldwell/NBC via Getty Images 3. Season 1 cast member Chevy Chase told the Late Show with David Letterman, "The real reason has not been publicized correctly. It was a girl, and everybody on the show knew that, particularly Lorne [Michaels], with whom I shared everything. He was like a brother to me. But there was a girl who lived in Los Angeles who I was infatuated with and wanted to marry, and she wouldn't move to New York." NBC / Via youtube.com "When I say infatuated, I, you know, had an erection every day, all day, just thinking about her... I said to Lorne, 'She's not gonna move. She said if I don't come back after one year here - and I was the only one with a contract - 'I'm not gonna marry you. I'm gonna go out with Warren Beatty and people like that.' And I went bats! I really left because of a girl," he said. NBC / Via youtube.com 4. Season 31 through 38 cast member Bill Hader told Interview magazine, "SNL is really hard to do when you're single and living alone. And then it's pretty tough when you're married, because you don't see your spouse. And then you bring kids into it, and the minute our first daughter was born, it was like, 'Oh, man, this is getting really hard.' And then we had a second child. By then, Andy [Samberg] and Kristen [Wiig] had left, and I was hearing rumblings of other people leaving. It was time to move to LA and make a clean break." NBC / NBCUniversal via Getty Images "I felt like I was in a good place with the show. I felt like every season I was getting a little bit better, and so instead of peaking, I was like, 'Oh, this is a good time to leave.' Lorne was really cool about it. I had made The Skeleton Twins, and this other thing called The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, two indie movies. But it wasn't like I was going to LA having a bunch of stuff in the chamber," he said. NBC / Via youtube.com 5. During the 2019 Evening with Stephen Colbert event, Season 8 through 10 cast member Julia Louis-Dreyfus described her time on SNL as "a pretty brutal time but a very informative time." NBC / NBCUniversal via Getty Images She said, "There were plenty of people on the show who were incredibly funny. But I was unbelievably naive, and I didn't really understand how the dynamics of the place worked. It was very sexist, very sexist. People were doing crazy drugs at the time. I was oblivious. I just thought, 'Oh wow. He's got a lot of energy.' ... I learned I wasn't going to do anymore of this show business crap unless it was fun. I