Apparently, the way “to God’s country” has a shortcut right through the heart of 30 Rock’s famed Studio 8H.
Country music star Morgan Wallen exited stage dead center midway during Saturday Night Live’s “goodnights” late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. The abrupt departure stirred up the internet when, post-show, Wallen posted an Instagram story depicting a jet and the caption: “Get me to God’s country.” Wallen hails from Tennessee.
Wallen has not directly addressed his exodus, but a source now tells The Hollywood Reporter that Wallen did the same thing during dress rehearsal, which is taped. On the dress tape, Wallen could be seen on stage starting the process with everyone else — but after a quick cutaway, he was gone. Show host Mikey Madison (Anora) and others carried on with the hugs and the waves, just as they did for the real deal. SNL’s dress rehearsal has a live studio audience (albeit a different one) just like the live show. Dress rehearsal is two hours long vs. the live show’s 90-minute runtime.
For the live show, with the director staying centerstage, Wallen’s exit at least looked more dramatic. The steady camera angle perfectly and fully captured the route Wallen used to exit. En route to God’s country, Wallen walked right off the Studio 8H stage and into your living room, basically.
Still, at the time, no one really thought much of it, a source recalls. Wallen’s team was “so nice” throughout the entire week, the person who spoke with THR on the condition of anonymity, adds. It was the internet that made this a thing, which is what the internet does best.
Longtime cast member Kenan Thompson says he “definitely” noticed Wallen dip.
“You see somebody before you get a chance to say hi or say good job or anything like that, they just dipping,” Thompson told Entertainment Weekly. “I thought maybe he had to go to the potty or something.”
“I don’t know what goes through people’s minds when they decide to do stuff like that,” Thompson said. “I don’t know if he understood the assignment or not, or if he was really feeling a certain kind of way.”
On occasion, especially when a sketch gets cut, an upset performer may not end up joining everyone else. No one forces them up on the stage, the source said.
But this was so much more noticeable, and some amateur internet sleuths believe it was a purposefully visible protest. Wallen appeals to a huge number of conservatives and SNL skews very liberal.
Wallen has a bit of a checkered history with Saturday Night Live. In October 2020, SNL canceled Wallen’s scheduled debut as SNL musical guest after videos of the singer brazenly violating CDC-recommended social-distancing guidelines went viral. He ultimately performed on the show just two months later and participated in a parody of the incident and its fallout.
Sketch-comedy conspiracy theorists are now also locking on to the fact that Wallen did not appear in a pre-tape sketch, which typically are filmed on a Friday (sometimes a Thursday). That’s also not unusual, the source close to the show said. Sometimes the show’s musical guests are particularly busy away from the SNL sets — or maybe they just want focus on their musical performance. Sometimes they just don’t like the proposed sketch.
Joe Jonas popped up on Saturday’s SNL to sing the bridge on Big Dumb Line, a pre-tape musical number about waiting in long New York City lines for viral foods, which grow increasingly stranger in nature. Wallen was asked to the do part, a source says, but he “wasn’t available.”
Wallen performed a pair of songs from his upcoming album, I’m the Problem, on the final SNL of March 2025. And then he was out.
“I had a wonderful time, thank you all,” Madison said, as the house band played, and the closing credits began to roll. Wallen then gave Madison a hug and said something in her ear.
Source: Hollywoodreporter
