Grace Reiter, Saidah Belo-Osagie, and the Full Story Behind SNL's Season 52

Grace Reiter: From Chippewa Falls TikToks to Studio 8H

SNL locked in its final two Season 52 hires on September 16, Grace Reiter and Saidah Belo-Osagie, just ahead of the show's return on September 26 with Jalen Brunson hosting and Katseye as musical guest.¹

Reiter's path to SNL started on TikTok in 2019, where she began posting point-of-view-style comedy skits.² By 2022, she had around 1.7 million followers, and that number had grown past 2 million by late 2023.² Her first real brush with a national audience came back in June 2021, when she appeared on The Drew Barrymore Show performing a stand-up bit about her childhood cartoon crushes.²

Late 2022 is when things really took off. She joined the core sketch team at American High, the Syracuse-based production company, and became a regular in their daily short-form videos.² One of her skits, a 42-minute parody of The Hunger Games that she also wrote and directed, has racked up 13 million views on YouTube alone.³ That kind of output is what landed her a role in HBO's The Chair Company and, this year, a spot as one of Variety's 10 Creators to Watch.⁴ She's now set to star in American High's Netflix series Minimum Wage, a 28-episode order about teenagers working at a pizzeria, which was filmed in the Syracuse area and follows original shorts that have pulled in more than 30 million views combined across platforms.³ Today she's sitting at 3.9 million TikTok followers and nearly 700,000 YouTube subscribers,² which makes her one of the most online hires SNL has made in recent memory.

Saidah Belo-Osagie: A Quieter Path with a Viral Moment of Her Own

Belo-Osagie's route to SNL looked almost nothing like Reiter's. She grew up in Elmont, New York, the daughter of Nigerian immigrants, studied philosophy, politics, and economics at the University of Pennsylvania, and graduated in 2018.⁵ Her first jobs were entirely behind the camera. She interned at Tribeca Productions on the Netflix miniseries When They See Us, then worked as an assistant on ABC's For Life and Netflix's Kaleidoscope.⁵

She didn't fully pivot to comedy until she wrote and directed the short film Tinge in 2020, which went on to play New York area festivals including Newfest.⁵ From there she built Afrobeats Futura, a recurring event series celebrating African diaspora artists that won a Soho House Unsung Hero Award,⁶ and a solo clown show called Saidah Gets Closure, about surviving heartbreak, that she performed around New York.⁵ Her actual brush with virality came from a TikTok, a skit joking about the upside of gentrification that pulled in more than 2.4 million views and, by her own account, kicked up a real firestorm of reaction online.⁷ She quit her day job entirely in 2024 to chase comedy full time,⁸ and her SNL hire carries its own historical weight. She's just the ninth Black woman to join the cast as a featured player in the show's more than 50 year history, following performers like Danitra Vance, Ellen Cleghorne, and Sasheer Zamata.⁹

I'm not familiar with either of them yet, but I'm genuinely curious to see how the two of them measure up against the cast members they're stepping in for.

Who's Actually Leaving, and Who Got Promoted

The confirmed exits are Chloe Fineman, who announced her departure back in July after seven seasons, and Bowen Yang, who left mid-season in December.¹⁰ On the promotion side, Ashley Padilla and Jane Wickline were bumped up to repertory status heading into this season.¹⁰

The more layered story is Please Don't Destroy. John Higgins left the writers' room first, back in the spring, and that's the same day Ben Marshall was promoted from writer to featured player, making him the only one of the trio to land an actual cast spot.¹¹ Then, just weeks before this premiere, Martin Herlihy confirmed he wouldn't be returning either.¹² So the trio as an SNL writing unit is officially done, though they're still touring together outside the show, including a stop in Buffalo on September 12 at Asbury Hall.¹¹

What the Cast Did on Break

Ben Marshall had a full plate before even making the jump to featured player. He co-starred with Marcello Hernández and Kam Patterson in Netflix's 72 Hours opposite Kevin Hart, and also guest-starred in an episode of Poker Face season two.¹³

Kam Patterson had a steady run too. He co-starred in 72 Hours, appeared in the film Busboys, and has an upcoming rom-com, Love Love.¹⁴

Marcello Hernández had one of the busiest off-seasons on the cast. He hosted the 2026 ESPYs, first time the show was back in New York since 1999,¹⁵ dropped his debut Netflix special American Boy in January, which landed in the Top 10, and ran a packed stand-up tour that included sold-out Spanish-language shows in South Florida that kept adding dates.¹⁶

This Season's First Wave of Hosts

The lineup NBC has announced so far is a good mix. Jalen Brunson kicks off the premiere on September 26, fresh off leading the Knicks to their first NBA championship in 53 years and taking home 2026 Finals MVP. He's only the fifth basketball player to ever host and the first active NBA player to do it since LeBron James back in 2007.¹⁷ Dakota Johnson follows on October 3 for her third hosting stint, and then Shane Gillis returns October 10, also for his third time.¹⁷ I'm genuinely excited to see Gillis back for a third round. He was fired from the show back in 2019, days before he was ever set to appear, after offensive clips from his podcast resurfaced.¹⁸ Watching him rebuild from that into someone SNL now brings back as a recurring host says a lot about how far he's come since. After that, the show takes a two week break before returning October 31 with Obsession breakout Inde Navarrette making her hosting debut.¹⁷

Sources

1. Variety, "SNL Adds New Cast Members Grace Reiter and Saidah Belo-Osagie, Completing Season 52 Ensemble" — variety.com/2026/tv/news/snl-new-cast-members-grace-reiter-saidah-belo-osagie-1236864319
2. Wikipedia, "Grace Reiter" — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Reiter
3. The Daily Orange, "American High member Grace Reiter joins cast of 'SNL' for Season 52" — dailyorange.com/2026/09/american-high-member-grace-reiter-joins-cast-of-snl-for-season-52
4. NBC Insider, "Meet Two New SNL Cast Members for Season 52" — nbc.com/nbc-insider/snl-season-52-two-new-cast-members-photos
5. Wikipedia, "Saidah Belo-Osagie" — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saidah_Belo-Osagie
6. Comedy Freaks, "Saidah Belo-Osagie" — comedyfreaks.co.uk/comedians/saidah-belo-osagie
7. Gothamist, "An NYC comedian joked about the upside of gentrification. Then came the firestorm" — March 12, 2025
8. PressReader / The Boston Globe, "Meet the new 'SNL' cast members" — pressreader.com/usa/the-boston-globe/20260919/282222312663063
9. The Root, "Where Are SNL's 8 Former Black Female Cast Members Today" — theroot.com/where-are-the-8-black-women-who-paved-the-way-on-snl-to-2000126594
10. Wikipedia, "Saturday Night Live season 52" — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Live_season_52
11. LateNighter, "Please Don't Destroy Set Summer Tour Dates" — latenighter.com/news/please-dont-destroy-summer-tour-dates-2026
12. The Hollywood Reporter, "'SNL' Season 52: All the Hosts and Musical Guests" — hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/snl-season-52-hosts-musical-guests-list-1236695508
13. Wikipedia, "Ben Marshall (comedian)" — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Marshall_(comedian)
14. Wikipedia, "Kam Patterson" — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kam_Patterson
15. Awful Announcing, "SNL's Marcello Hernandez to host 2026 ESPYs" — awfulannouncing.com/news/snls-marcello-hernandez-to-host-2026-espys.html
16. Hoodline, "SNL's Marcello Hernández Adds Second Spanish Show at Hard Rock Live After South Florida Sellout" — hoodline.com/2026/08/snl-s-marcello-hernandez-adds-second-spanish-show-at-hard-rock-live-after-south-florida-sellout
17. The Wrap, "'SNL' Taps Jalen Brunson, Dakota Johnson, Shane Gillis and Inde Navarrette as Season 52 Hosts" — thewrap.com/creative-content/tv-shows/snl-jalen-brunson-dakota-johnson-shane-gillis-inde-navarrette-season-52-fall-hosts
18. NBC News, "Shane Gillis was fired from 'SNL.' Now he's hosting" — nbcnews.com/news/shane-gillis-saturday-night-live-fired-now-hosting-rcna137161