One of Saturday Night Live‘s newest stars, Bowen Yang, spilled a ton of tea during his appearance on WWHL this past Sunday alongside Real Housewives of Potomac‘s Monique Samuels.
The 29-year-old made television history last year when he was promoted to the on-air cast for SNL‘s 45th season, making him the first Chinese-American cast member and only the third openly gay male to be part of the long-running late night program.
It wasn’t something that he initially thought would happen though. WWHL host Andy Cohen fielded a question from a fan who asked what his audition was like. “I just threw everything against the wall,” he said. “Cuz I just kept going back in but I was like, ‘I don’t think this is going to happen so I’m just going to have fun with it.'”
Many past SNL alum have done impressions of well-known celebrities as their way of getting onto the show. Kate McKinnon (another member of our LGBTQ community) channeled Penelope Cruz in hers while Will Ferrell hilariously did famed sports broadcaster Harry Caray. Bowen followed suit with his own audition.
“I did, like, Michiko Kakutani and I did David Chang, I did all these impressions that I had no business doing but I still had fun doing them,” he said. “I did the SoulCycle character (see above), I did the guy from the choking poster, I did a lot of stuff that I somehow brought onto the show. So I got lucky that I just pulled from my auditions.”
Bowen then touched on what its like to break ground at SNL with him being their first Chinese-American cast member. “It’s really special, it’s really nice. I feel very honored.”
The Australian native also spilled the tea on some other juicy items such as who his first ever crush was when he was growing up. “Oh I was really basic in the 90’s and it was Leo (DiCaprio),” he admitted. “I was like every cis gay boy and girl, straight girl. Love that Leo. And that chain in Romeo & Juliet… that sort of did me in.”
Bowen also revealed the one Real Housewife that he deems to be the greatest of all time. “I’m going to say, of all time, Bethenny (Frankel). You can’t go wrong with Bethenny. Even though RHONY is sort of doing well without her i think Bethenny is like one of the greats.”
SNL triumphantly returned this past weekend after finishing off last season doing at-home skits thanks to COVID. Jim Carrey made his hilarious debut as Joe Biden while Alec Baldwin returned as President Donald Trump as did Maya Rudolph as Kamala Harris during the First Debate Cold Open.