Tracy Morgan Felt ‘Culturally Isolated’ at ‘Saturday Night Live’: ‘Whitest Show in America’

Tracy Morgan didn’t hold back when discussing the downsides of his early days at Saturday Night Live.

“I wanted to show them my world, how funny it was. But the first three years, I felt like I was being culturally isolated sometimes,” Morgan, 56, recalled on Peacock’s SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night docuseries. “I’m coming from a world of Blacks. I’m an inner-city kid.”

Morgan referred to SNL as the “whitest show in America,” adding, “I felt by myself. I felt like they weren’t getting it.”

Morgan, who worked on the NBC sketch comedy series from 1996 to 2003, praised creator Lorne Michaels for helping him work through the issues he faced.

“Lorne Michaels had that talk with me,” he added. “He said, ‘Tracy, I hired you because you’re funny, not because you’re Black. So just do your thing.’ And that’s when I started doing my thing.’”

Since its inception, Saturday Night Live has become a fixture in late-night programming. In addition to each episode featuring a celebrity host and a musical guest, the show has helped launch the careers of many cast members such as Steve Martin, Dan Aykroyd, Tina Fey, Adam Sandler, Pete Davidson and Kate McKinnon.

Current and former stars have opened up about the pros — and cons — that come with appearing on SNL. Davidson specifically made headlines recently after discussing his shocking starting salary.

“Do you guys know what they pay us?” Davidson, 31, who spent eight seasons as a cast member from 2014 to 2022, said in a video roundup for New York Magazine in December 2024. “It’s like three grand an episode. I think I got dinner.”

Jason Sudeikis shared a similar sentiment, adding, “I mean, you don’t make enough money to make big purchases. I think New York rent was probably the biggest purchase I made after writing my first year on SNL.”

Meanwhile, Kenan Thompson argued it is all part of the process.

“It’s pretty notorious that it’s more so about having the job than getting paid for the job,” Thompson, 46, told Variety that same month before declining to provide any specific salary numbers.

Thompson, who has been on SNL since 2003, argued that cast members have to “pay your dues a little bit.” The comedian began his career as a cast member on multiple projects at Nickelodeon. From there, Thompson joined SNL — and has since remained the longest-tenured cast member in the show’s history.

Two months prior to his Variety interview, Thompson made rare comments about his income as a child star. “That first commercial when they paid me, it was $800,” Thompson revealed on Demi Lovato‘s Child Star doc in September 2024. “I was 12 so that may as well have been a million dollars.”

Thompson recalled going “from rags to riches and then back to rags” again.

“In Florida they didn’t have the same labor laws. My mom met this dude either through church or the community who claimed to be good at getting you out of your tax problems. He was basically a con artist and ran away with my biggest earnings up to that point,” he revealed. “By the time it was discovered, it was at the end of that Nickelodeon tenure. It was devastating because I discovered it in front of others. I was going to buy a house in Atlanta — my first home — and he didn’t show up with the f—ing check.”

The experience caused Thompson to reconsider his future in the industry.

“I really considered not wanting to act anymore if these are the kinds of things I had to go through,” he admitted at the time. “It was almost like I was forced to stay humble — if you will — because when I could have been at my most boisterous everybody knows my name kind of years, I didn’t want that because I didn’t want people to know I was struggling. It’s kind of the beautiful conundrum, the irony of life.”