Bowen Yang Is Lobbying For Kenan Thompson To Win An Emmy Over Him For His Work On ‘SNL’

Bowen Yang may go down in the record books as the cast member who had the most memorable solo sketch in Season 47 of Saturday Night Live thanks to his standout performance as the iceberg that sunk the Titanic. But he wants the elder statesman of the cast to be awarded for his work over the last year.

Yang, an SNL cast member nominated for an Emmy, is openly lobbying not to win the award and asking voters to pick Kenan Thompson when they vote for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in the coming days. Yang addressed this on Instagram in a story posted on Thursday, where he explained that while he might get in trouble for lobbying against himself he truly feels Thompson deserves the award over him.

“There’s no chic way of saying this,” Yang said on Instagram. “I have been told we are a week away from Emmys voting and I felt the need to express my top line campaign message, which is that if you’re in the Television Academy, please vote for Kenan Thompson for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.”

Yang made it clear that this isn’t him being humble, he simply thinks Thompson deserves it more than he does after nearly two decades on the show they currently call home.

“He is one of the best sketch comedians of all time,” Yang said. “He’s one of the kindest people I know and that many others know.

“This isn’t a faux humility thing — I don’t want it, to be honest,” Yang continued. “And it’s not that I’m too cool for it, because I’m not, but I’m just being real: I don’t want it and Kenan deserves it. And I know this is messy… and that someone on my team will be mad at me but I’m just being real.”

Yang and Thompson aren’t alone in the category, of course, as the two sketch comedy stars will go up against Jeremy Swift, Nick Mohammed, Brendan Hunt, and Brett Goldstein from Ted Lasso, Carl Clemons-Hopkins of Hacks and Paul Reiser from The Kominsky Method. But if Yang had a vote here, well, we now know where we’d see it go.

[via EW]