“Saturday Night Live” is not a homewrecker.
At least not for Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell, the latter said Tuesday on Shannon Sharpe's podcast. “Club Shay Shay.”
After collaborating on several Nickelodeon shows throughout the '90s, the former comedy duo “Kenan and Kel” lost touch and barely spoke until more than a decade later, when Mitchell was chosen to present Thompson with a Kids' Choice Award 2014.
During his interview with Mitchell, posted Wednesday on YouTube, Sharpe asked if losing a spot on “SNL” to Thompson (the two auditioned for the same premiere on the show in 2003) had caused the breakdown in their relationship. Mitchell explained that he and Thompson had begun to grow apart much earlier.
“When people see us on TV, they think, 'Oh, this is his brother.' You have to be together all the time,' but this is a job,” Mitchell said. They hadn't been close while making “Kenan and Kel” and when they auditioned for “SNL,” they hadn't spoken in years.
“I didn't even know Kenan would be there,” Mitchell said. “[People] I felt like it was this fight, but it wasn't. It was just a matter of, 'Oh, you're here too?' Okay, let's audition.'”
When Thompson got the job on “SNL,” Mitchell said, he didn’t hold any grudges about it.
“I don't look at it as being angry at my son; that's not what it was,” he said. “What was really happening was what was happening behind the scenes.”
Near the end of his career at Nickelodeon, Mitchell said, he began clashing with several network executives. Added to the severe stress of what he called a “toxic relationship,” the turmoil of the set sent the comedian into a deep depression. At the time, Mitchell didn't tell anyone, not even Thompson, what was happening.
“I didn't trust anyone at the time,” he told Sharpe.
“I went through a lot of depression.”
At his lowest point, Mitchell turned to drugs and alcohol to cope, he said in a 2015 interview with People. “Lost and searching for answers,” the preacher’s grandson returned to his Christian roots and “found that clarity with Christ,” he said.
His newfound faith eventually led him to reconnect with Thompson. After their meeting at the Kids Choice Awards, they had an hour-long phone call and talked about things they had kept from each other as teenagers.
“It was good for us to have that conversation as adults,” Mitchell said.
“We discovered,” he added, “that we both had people talking in our ears…people telling me things about Kenan, people telling him things about me.”
During their heart-to-heart conversation, they promised they wouldn't let that happen again.
Shortly after, the couple reunited for a “Good Burger” sketch on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon”, and have since reprized their roles as Ed and Dexter Reed in 2022. “SNL” episode and in 2023's “Good Burger 2.”
“Now, every day, we talk to each other as brothers,” Mitchell said, “and we just check on each other.”
