Andy Samberg Says He Left ‘SNL’ When ‘I Was Falling Apart in My Life’

Andy Samberg put himself first when it came time to walk away from Saturday Night Live.

“For me, it was, like, I can’t actually endure it anymore,” Samberg, 45, said during the Thursday, July 11, episode of Kevin Hart’s “Heart to Hart” show on Peacock. “Physically and emotionally. I was falling apart in my life.”

He continued, “Physically, it was taking a heavy toll on me, and I got to a place where I hadn’t slept in seven years. … It’s basically like four days a week you’re not sleeping, for seven years. I just kind of fell apart physically.”

Samberg was cast on SNL in 2005, often performing in musical sketches with fellow members of the Lonely Island — Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer — including viral performances of “I’m on a Boat” and “I Just Had Sex.” After seven years, Samberg opted to leave the sketch comedy show.

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Samberg, who later hosted a 2014 episode of SNL, noted to Hart, 45, on Thursday that he didn’t initially “want” to leave the sketch series but needed to “get back to a feeling of mental and physical health.”

“Everyone was like, ‘Oh, same,'” Samberg recalled. “No one was like, ‘What?’ Everyone was like, ‘Oh, yes, yes. This is just what happens.’ Like, you hit a wall. We’re not built to operate that way.”

While Samberg has moved on from SNL, he is still grateful for the experience and for fostering lifelong friendships. Samberg, Taccone, 47, and Schaffer, 46, have known each other since childhood and still professionally collaborate.

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“We are all into the same things now. Literally, we haven’t grown out of any of our interests,” Samberg previously told Men’s Health in 2020 of the musical trio’s enduring bond. “I might get offered a movie and go, ‘Oh, that sounds fun.’ But in the same way, I have to go to my wife [Joanna Newsom] and go, ‘Hey, would I be able to do this movie?’ I also need to call those guys — even if it has nothing to do with them — and go, ‘In six months, are we thinking that we would do something together?’”

The Brooklyn Nine-Nine alum noted at the time that their collaborations are some of his favorite projects he’s ever worked on.

“I think I speak for all three of us — the things that we’re the proudest of, and that seem to be the things that people bring up to us over the years, are always the things we’ve made together,” Samberg added.