Lorne Michaels is addressing the, what some would call, controversial cast changes at Saturday Night Live .

The 80-year-old creator and producer of the show spoke out at the 2025 Emmy Awards on Sunday (September 14) about the casting shakeups ahead of the late night variety program’s 51st season.

“The show has always brought people in from different ages and different generations and it’s how it revives itself,” he shared with Entertainment Tonight on the red carpet. “It’s always hard when people leave but there’s a time for that and our audiences always stayed relatively young and more so now with TikTok, and change is good. And the people we’re bringing in I’m really excited about.”

At the Emmys, SNL picked up several awards, including Outstanding Variety Special (

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