Longtime “Saturday Night Live” writer Paula Pell believes she never became a cast member on the show because she’s “a plus size person.”
The 63-year-old shared her theory on Tuesday’s episode of Amy Poehler’s “Good Hang” podcast.
“I don’t want to speculate, but I have heard, here and there, small things,” he told the audience.
“And who knows because we were all there when they chose people and it doesn’t happen,” he added. “I mean, not randomly, but there are reasons you don’t think are reasons and all this.
“But I suspect that [it’s because] I was a big lady,” continued Pell.
The comedian noted that when he joined “SNL” in 1995, “it just wasn’t there. [representation] on any TV or anything.”
She noted, “It was starting to have people like Roseanne Barr, people who had really good looking bodies, but I wasn’t just the beauty of that place.”
When Poehler asked the Emmy winner if she “ever talked to anyone on the show about that specifically,” Pell replied, “I was a really good Catholic girl, a follower of the rules. … I was too scared to show the desire to perform.”
A representative for NBC did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.
Pell, notably, did not audition for “SNL” but instead received a call to meet with the show’s creator and executive producer, Lorne Michaels.
He was working at Disney World at the time and flew to New York City for the meeting.
“I got there again [I] he was scared,” Pell recalled Wednesday. “He was two hours late and I sat down with him. He started talking like we’ve been talking for a long time. Like, he started in the middle of a sentence. “
Pell joked that despite not getting an official job offer from Michaels, he somehow ended up working for the writers.
Before joining “SNL” behind the scenes, Pell was a “non-writer” and had previous comedy experience doing live shows in parks and theaters.
“Even though I was writing short stories, I [didn’t] to be able to do any of this,” he said of the NBC program.
Pell, however, worked on “SNL” from 1995 to 2013 and created some of its most famous characters and sketches, occasionally making cameos.
He has also been a screenwriter on several major projects, including “Bridesmaids” and Kim Kardashian’s upcoming film, “The 5th Wheel.”
Pell achieved her first acting dream after “SNL” and landed leading roles on shows from “30 Rock” to “Girls5eva.” He is currently starring in the Peacock series “The ‘Burbs”.
“That’s why I’m so happy to be able to sing later in my life because I finally got that out of the cage,” he said of “Good Hang.”
