WEEKEND UPDATE

‘SNL’ Star Makes Netflix Deal Amid Uncertain Future at Show

The “Weekend Update” co-anchor has revealed why he has considered quitting—and why he stays.

Michael Che announced his third Netflix stand-up special is officially in the works.

The longtime SNL star plans to tape the show at First Avenue in Minneapolis on August 28 and 29. This special follows two others for Netflix: Michael Che Matters (2016) and Michael Che: Shame the Devil (2021). He teased the announcement in May, writing on Instagram in his signature all-lowercase, “i’ll be promoting a standup special in like 2 months.. but i don’t really do a lotta press.. so what are the platforms that people f--- wit now?”

Che’s past stand-up specials have dealt with race, religion, mental health, and more, and audiences have met his performances with generally positive reviews. Che has co-anchored SNL’s “Weekend Update” segment for the last 12 seasons, making him the fifth longest-tenured cast member of all time, right behind his “Update” co-anchor Colin Jost.

His Netflix deal comes during SNL’s annual summer hiatus, which often sees major cast shake-ups. Earlier this month, cast member Chloe Fineman announced she was leaving the show after seven seasons, and shortly after that revealed she’d been cast in a new Netflix drama series.

Che has threatened to leave the show after nearly every season, though he’s always ended up sticking around. He hasn’t yet said whether he’ll remain part of the cast for Season 52, but stoking the rumor mill has become a part of his game. Comedian Mike Birbiglia once asked on his podcast, Working It Out, why news sources so consistently speculate about Che’s SNL status.

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“I think it’s ’cause I keep posting that I’m not coming back,” Che said.

“I always think I’m not coming back,” he continued on Working It Out. “I think I get it from my mom, you know, every year my mom complains about doing Thanksgiving and how much she has to do for Thanksgiving. She has to stay up all night, and everybody’s like, ‘Well, why don’t you just not do it? We’ll go somewhere else.’ And she’s like, ‘Well, then y’all going to complain.’ Like, ‘No, we won’t complain.’ But she has to do that. She has to tell herself that she has to do it even though she doesn’t want to do it, so that everybody can say, ‘Well, we’re glad you did it.’ I don’t know, and maybe that’s what it is. Maybe for me, I need to tell myself I’m leaving so that I can stay.”

Che has also said he’s considered quitting over specific instances. Jost wrote an “Update” joke about a 2015 Ohio criminal case where a woman stabbed her boyfriend because he ate a tub of salsa they were supposed to share. The punchline was “You’d be angry too if your boyfriend was jalapeño business,” playing on the phrase’s similarity to “all up in your business.”

“I was like, ‘If you tell that joke on air, I’m leaving. I’m quitting the show,’” Che said. “And he did it on air, and it destroyed. And I was so frustrated. I was so frustrated. I was like, ‘I don’t even know what we do anymore.’”

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Dana Herrnstadt Editorial Intern, Obsessed

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