Kenan Thompson and Ego Nwodim share discomfort during Ye's rogue MAGA performance on “SNL”: 'I'm out'

Kenan Thompson and Ego Nwodim are reflecting on one of their weirdest Saturday Night Live memories: Ye's pro-Donald Trump rant in 2018.

The former Kanye West's infamous off-the-cuff monologue occurred at the end of the season 44 premiere after he performed his song "Ghost Town."

The incident happened during Nwodim's first-ever SNL broadcast, she recalled in the new documentary Ladies & Gentlemen…50 Years of SNL Music. "I moved to New York exactly eight days prior for this job," she said, noting that she was one of the cast members on stage behind West as he began rambling. "I was like, 'I don't wanna be up here for this, and I don't agree with this, and standing up here looks like I'm standing in solidarity.'"

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Nwodim remembered trying to distance herself from the "Stronger" rapper's statements, which included lamentations about liberals criticizing him for wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat and an assertion that "Blacks weren't always Democrats."

"I was like, 'Don't make any faces. Neutral face. Neutral face. Everyone's gotta know I'm just fulfilling my duties as a cast member,'" Nwodim recalled. "It's like your first day at school, and you're like, 'I don't wanna get in trouble. Y'all told me to come up here, I'm up here.'"

The comedian also said she came to a disturbing realization midway through Ye's remarks. "I remember looking around the stage," she said. "Something made me be like, 'Oh, are there other Black people up here in the cast?' And I look, and no, I was the only one! And I thought, 'They had a meeting!' And so then I'm like, 'These motherf---ers!'"

Thompson exited the stage as Ye began to address the SNL audience. "When he grabbed the mic, and was just wandering around, you could see that he was gearing up to say something. I was like, 'I'm out!'" Thompson explained. "It would have been cool if he just had did the music thing, and, I don't know, just spoke through the hat, I guess, 'cause the hat was loud."

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The documentary also includes footage of Thompson seeing Ye's MAGA hat for the first time as they filmed a promo for the episode alongside host Adam Driver. "Oh yeah, that is a MAGA hat, huh?" Thompson says in the footage, surprised.

Ye responds, "You didn't notice that 'til now?"

Thompson then remarks, "I'm just now noticing. I'm putting it all together. He's serious!"

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Later, in an interview, SNL musical director and keyboardist Leon Pendarvis recalled continuing his performance as West spoke. "When it was happening, we kind of went, 'Okay, this is Kanye,'" he remembered. "But it went on and on and on, and at one point it was just me playing and Kanye. I guess my musical instinct said, 'Keep playing. Just keep playing.'"

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SNL producer Steve Higgins reflected on the show's lack of censorship. "This is a non-censoring show. It's one of the last places you do what you wanna do," he said. "As long as [guests] don't swear, break the FCC rules — because people do forget we're broadcast; they think we're HBO where you can say swear words and stuff like that. And it's like, as long as you don't do that, nobody's stopping anybody from doing anything."

Ladies & Gentlemen…50 Years of SNL Music is now streaming on Peacock.

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