This is no laughing matter.
Heidi Gardner’s contract with “Saturday Night Live” was not renewed for Season 51, an insider exclusively tells The Post.
“It’s time for a new cast,” the insider said.
The Post has reached out to Gardner’s rep and “SNL” for comment.
The 42-year-old was a staple on the sketch comedy series for the last eight seasons.
On Aug. 28, The Post confirmed that Gardner was leaving the show amid the major cast shake-up that has seen Michael Longfellow, Devon Walker and Emil Wakim also announce their exits. Five newcomers have since joined Season 51.
Gardner, unlike the trio, has not publicly addressed her departure.
Dana Carvey, who returned to “SNL” last season to play Joe Biden, shared intel about Gardner’s exit from the show on Wednesday’s episode of his “Fly on the Wall” podcast.
“From what I know as of this recording, that it was not her idea to leave,” Carvey, 70, told his co-host and “SNL” alum David Spade.
“I could be wrong about that,” Carvey added, “but that’s what I read.”
After Spade, 61, said he finds it “a little shocking” that “SNL” would fire Gardner, Carvey admitted he was “really surprised” when he heard she was off the show.
“I think she’s got a likability,” Carvey noted. “She can play real, straight news woman, she can play big, brawn, funny, physical. So I was surprised by that.”
Gardner was the longest-tenured woman on “SNL” as of Season 50. She joined the show during Season 43 as a featured player before being promoted to the main cast in 2019.
Some of Gardner’s most memorable characters included teen movie critic Bailey Gismert, Brie Bacardi from the “annoying Instagram couple,” Goop employee Baskin Johns, and Angel, “every boxer’s girlfriend from every movie about boxing ever.”
She impersonated multiple stars including Kim Kardashian, Drew Barrymore and Liz Cheney.
One of Gardner’s biggest “SNL” moments happened last year when she broke character during the infamous “Beavis and Butt-Head” sketch starring Ryan Gosling.
In the April 2024 skit, Gardner played a news anchor leading a town hall, and couldn’t keep her composure over two audience members (played by Gosling and Mikey Day) who looked just like the ’90s cartoon characters.
“I just couldn’t prepare for what I saw,” she told Vulture in an interview after the sketch went viral. “I really tried. I even saw Mikey out of the corner of my eye seconds before I went live. I saw the red shorts. I knew I couldn’t look over there again. Mikey even told me later that he was bending down and hiding himself so I wouldn’t see him.
“I’m thinking about it right now and laughing. I recovered and tried to tell myself in between dress and the live show, ‘You can’t laugh like that again.’ I was trying to imagine seeing him in my head so I was prepared for it,” she added.
Gardner hinted at her “SNL” exit during an appearance on Craig Ferguson’s podcast in February, admitting that she started to feel “sketch fatigue, or idea fatigue.”
“At this point, after doing Groundlings and SNL for so long, I’m like, ‘I’ve written a lot of sketches,’ ” she explained. “You just get scared and it does happen some weeks where I’m like ‘I do not have an idea for a sketch, a game, or a character.’
“Luckily we have amazing writers at the show that will be like, ‘But I have an idea for you.’ That’s the only thing that has gotten a little tough,” Gardner noted.
She also teased what could be next for her career, telling Ferguson: “I’d love to have a show that I co-star in and co-write, and it’s a character and it’s a world and it’s a character I get to live in for a while and explore more.”
In recent years, Gardner branched out from sketch comedy and has starred in several shows including AppleTV+’s Emmy-nominated comedy series “Shrinking.” She played Grace, one of Jimmy’s (Jason Segel) patients, in the first two seasons.
Gardner has also appeared in an episode of Netflix’s “You” during its final season, the sitcom “Girls5eva” and Adam Sandler’s 2022 basketball movie “Hustle.”
“SNL” Season 51 premieres Oct. 4 on NBC.
