Comedian Chris Redd is admitting to a prescription pill addiction while reflecting on his 2022 departure from Saturday Night Live after five years with the NBC sketch comedy show.
“Bottom line is, while I was at the show, I had some pill issues. I had some pill problems. Nothing too crazy, but crazy for my Black ass. I was even selling some to people, some of my castmates,” Redd revealed in a Jan. 6 Instagram post.
The backdrop to discussing the pill abuse issue was Redd addressing longstanding rumors about having dated his former SNL costar and friend Kenan Thompson’s ex-wife, Christina Evangeline. Redd, while admitting to the affair, said it was entirely unplanned.
“I was never, like, hitting on. It was never crazy, until it got crazy,” he said during the video post.
Redd joined SNL as a featured player in the 2017-18 season and was promoted to the main cast prior to season 45 in 2019. He won an Emmy for outstanding music and lyrics in 2018 for the song “Come Back Barack,” sharing the award with fellow lyricists Thompson and Will Stephen and composer Eli Brueggemann.
Redd also co-starred with Thompson in the Lorne Michaels-produced NBC series Kenan, which was canceled after a two-season run. On Instagram, Redd explained his SNL years coincided with his substance abuse issues.
Redd added that he won’t “snitch” on which SNL castmates were buyers of prescription pills, but did talk about the toxic environment on and away from the series’ set around his drug issues. “It was really funny to me that, like, I would be around on this shit, and people would talk shit about it and buy and talk shit about me… but wouldn’t like help me. I would have panic attacks… wouldn’t like be concerned about me, nothing,” Redd wrote.
“And it was crazy that somebody would watch you destroy yourself,” he added. Redd said he was in therapy and dealing with anger issues to put the trauma around his SNL years into perspective.
“There’s different ways I could (have) went about this shit. But I was in love and I was spiraling out, bro. And by the time everybody in the world found out, I would out of there, SNL,” Redd said.
The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to reps for SNL.
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