Dave Chappelle and Bowen Yang hug on ‘SNL’ a year after awkward photo

Dave Chappelle and Bowen Yang have once again shared the Saturday Night Live stage — and this time, it looked significantly less awkward.

In the final few moments of the Jan. 18 episode, which featured Chappelle hosting the show for the fourth time, several SNL cast members and musical guest GloRilla joined the comedian on stage to bid the audience farewell. During the goodbyes, Chappelle and Yang briefly hugged.

The moment marked their first onscreen interaction of the night, as Yang did not appear in any sketches with Chappelle, and followed the comedian’s surprise appearance on the sketch comedy last January.

Eagle-eyed fans were surprised to spot the Chappelle Show star in the crowd for the final goodnights during that 2024 Dakota Johnson–hosted episode. The fact that Yang stood on the opposite end of the stage from Chappelle with his arms folded left some viewers speculating that he was distancing himself from the controversial comedian. Yang addressed the distance a few months later, saying that was not the case.

“I stand where I always stand on [goodnights],” Yang told Variety in June. “It was not a physical distance that anyone was creating. It had to do with so many things that were completely internal.”

When asked if Chappelle’s appearance made him unhappy, Yang replied, “It was about other people’s response in the show. I was just confused, that was it.”

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Chappelle sparked controversy after his 2021 Netflix stand-up special, The Closer, in which he made jokes about the transgender community. LGBTQ+ advocacy groups condemned his rhetoric, and Netflix employees staged a walkout to protest the show. Chappelle last hosted SNL the following year, and afterward the national director of the Anti-Defamation League criticized his monologue for “popularizing” antisemitism.

In this weekend’s episode, Chappelle delivered a 17-minute monologue and admitted that he was reluctant to return as host given his tendency to stir up controversy. He added that SNL boss Lorne Michaels had to persuade him to kick off the first show of the New Year, joking, “The moment I said yes, L.A. burst into flames!”

He added, “I’m tired of being controversial. I’m trying to turn over a new leaf.”

After Chappelle said it is “way too soon” to crack jokes about the wildfires that destroyed acres of land in Los Angeles, he went on to find humor in the tragedy anyway, even poking fun at the city’s queer community.

“I’m sure there were some arsonists,” Chappelle said of the cause of the fires. “But there were a lot of elements that came together to make this fire the catastrophe that it was. The wind was 100 miles an hour, L.A. was dry as a bone, and the levees… It was just too many factors.”

Then he quipped, “If you were a rational thinking person, you have to at least consider the possibility that God hates these people… Sodomites!” Pausing for laughs, he added, “And that’s not true because West Hollywood was unscathed… Because how can you burn what is already flaming?”