Morgan Wallen and His SNL Exit: His Past Controversies in Relation to the Sketch Show Incident

Country music singer Morgan Wallen has been brought into the public eye once again, due to another controversy. After being the musical guest on an episode of Saturday Night Live in late March, the singer made a very strange and abrupt exit during the final bows of the show, leaving the audience and SNL cast confused as to why he coldly left the set.

Typically, the guest host and the musical guest of the episode takes that time (while the cameras are still rolling) to socialize and celebrate with the rest of the cast members onstage as the credits roll and the episode comes to an end. Wallen, however, chose to exit as soon as his last line was finished and walk straight through the audience and away from the cameras. This seemed like it could have maybe been a comedy bit at first, but the shocked and confused faces of all of the cast members ensured that his exit was, in fact, not planned. 

Just a few weeks later, SNL took the time to acknowledge the notable incident, and even made multiple jokes about it in their episode. During the weekend news update portion of the episode, Colin Jost was able to make a joke of Wallen in comparison to the economic state of the world. 

"Just in the past two days, investors have lost over $6 trillion. Money is leaving the stock market faster than Morgan Wallen at goodnights," said Jost. 

This is not the first time that Wallen has been involved with controversies, especially with SNL. In 2020, Wallen was meant to be a musical guest for an episode, but was eventually not allowed on the episode, due to a released video of him partying in a large group of people, unmasked. Considering this was in the peak of the COVID pandemic, he quickly earned a lot of hate for the video, regardless of the support of his fans. He eventually made a public apology for his actions, and it seemed like five years later, this was SNL's version of giving him a second chance. 

Since SNL is such a widely viewed program, with a large following on social media, it is not surprising that the internet has quickly taken hold of this controversy and spread the news of it to multiple platforms. A variety of edits of Wallen's exit have been made, highlighting the incident to be the only notable occurrence during that episode. 

Had this happened during a time without social media, the chances of the moment gaining this much recognition would be much less likely. In the time of 2025, there remains the ability for people online to comment either for support towards Wallen or hate against him, therefore creating a much larger conversation that would not exist in simply a printed news article or broadcast nightly news story. 

Wallen has yet to make any direct or public statement on the exiting incident, and his cold exit might be enough for SNL to not ask him to return to the show. Until a statement is made from Wallen, there will most likely continue to be online speculation regarding his reasoning behind his widely broadcast actions.