Kenan Thompson Says Kanye West Held 'SNL' Cast 'Hostage' With Pro-Trump Rant

Kenan Thompson kicked off his 16th season of "Saturday Night Live," but he'd never seen anything like what went down after the show wrapped on Saturday with Kanye West on the stage.

Kanye was the musical guest, and he closed the show with a musical number, which is all well and good. He's not the first to do this. But after the credits rolled and the cameras stopped, West apparently decided it was time to give a little speech, and he invited the cast on-stage during it.

"Yeah, he voiced his opinion very loudly," Kenan Thompson told Seth Meyers on "Late Night" Monday. "For a long time."

"You all disagree with me, right? Come up here. Join me while I do this," Seth said, suggesting what Kanye was doing.

"I'll be nice, I promise. Get up here," Kenan continued it. "And then proceeds to ka-ka on people. That's what he did."

Kenan stood by the notion that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and they have the right to express them. As he and Seth noted, the cast is there to accommodate the host and musical guest. "I don't know if that's the moment necessarily to hold people hostage like that," Kenan noted, "But hey, you know."

No one in the cast seemed to know what to expect as West went on a rant saying that he'd been bullied by the show's producers over wearing his MAGA hat. He laid into the Democratic party and Bill Cosby and even looked to co-head writer Michael Che for support at one point, as TMZ reported.

"I felt so bad for those guys," Kenan said. "Because it's hard to stand there and not be able to debate somebody who's going so far against your personal opinion." Kenan had already left for the night, for which he said he was so glad.

"It's so many times that I talk to a white person about this, and they say, 'How could you support Trump? He's racist.' Well if I was concerned about racism, I would have moved out of America a long time ago," West said as part of his rant. "We don't just make our decisions off of racism. I'ma break it down to you right now: If someone inspires me and I connect with them, I don't have to believe in all they policies."

Meanwhile, "Saturday Night Live" and its cast have been outspoken critics of Donald Trump and this administration every week during "Weekend Update" and several sketches. It would be a kindness to say Alec Baldwin's impression of him is unflattering.

The cast did not engage with Kanye, nor did they stick around long. One by one, they filed off the stage as he continued his speech.

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