Kenan Thompson's Latest Response To Kanye's 'SNL' Rant Is Really On-Point

By now, most people with access to the internet have probably seen — or at least heard about — Kanye West's impromptu, and ultimately unaired, Saturday Night Live rant from the show's season premiere. More than a week later, seasoned members of the SNL cast are still talking about it. In fact, Kenan Thompson responded to Kanye's SNL speech for a second time on Monday, Oct. 8, during the latest episode of NBC's Late Night With Seth Meyers podcast.

Referencing West's bizarrely political post-show rant, which quickly made its way onto social media following SNL's Sept. 30 episode, Meyers opened his and Thompson's recent conversation with a statement that'll probably have most listeners nodding their heads. "It has to have been one of the top five weirdest goodnights with Mr. West," the host joked, though Thompson was quick to agree. "I would say the absolute top," replied the comedian.

And while it's probably pretty tough to argue with that last statement, it's definitely not all Thompson had to say on the subject of West's unscripted rant, before which the rapper had unexpectedly asked SNL's cast to join him onstage. "That was just gnarly," Thompson told Meyers, before calling West a "setup artist" and questioning why he brought the SNL cast on stage in the first place. Ostensibly referencing the political views expressed in West's rant, and how they probably directly clash with those of the SNL cast and crew, Thompson made his thoughts on the whole ordeal pretty clear. He told Meyers,

"[West] invited the cast back up there to immediately sh*t on them. What kind of like weird, let me be the puppet master type sh*t is that? I'm so glad that I'd gone to my room to change."

Thompson reiterated during the podcast episode that his primary issue with West's rant was its aggressiveness and lack of concern for others' opinions. "It's just leaning your personal opinion so heavy on others," Thompson told the Late Night host in the podcast. "You're putting it out here like what your word says goes, and that's just not fair."

Thompson's latest thoughts on West's SNL rant echo those he shared with Meyers during Late Night's Oct. 2 episode, just a few days after the whole post-show rant debacle actually took place. During his appearance, Thompson managed to sum up the crux of his feelings about West's speech (and how he went about delivering it, with the whole cast standing behind him, not knowing what was going on) in one exceedingly on-point statement:

"We're all entitled to our own opinion — I don't know if that's the moment, necessarily to hold people hostage like that — but hey, you know!"

As Thompson said, at least he was able to personally opt out of what was probably a really uncomfortable experience for most of his fellow SNL cast mates. (Thompson, luckily, had already gone backstage to change when West invited the cast back up on stage.) But he told Meyers during his Late Night appearance last week that he "felt so bad for those guys" because he knows how difficult it must have been for them "to stand there and not be able to debate somebody who is going so far against your personal opinion."

Hopefully West — as well as other performers and public figures with similarly powerful influence over the public — will take note of comments like Thompson's, and be more mindful of the way their words might impact others moving forward.