Bill Hader has finally revealed his reason for skipping out on the “Saturday Night Live!” 50th anniversary special earlier this year — and even brushed off his own publicist’s initial excuse for his absence.
The comedian was a notable no-show at February’s grand tribute to the long-running program, which featured the who’s who of comedy.
Hader’s publicist initially claimed that scheduling issues were to blame, but the “Barry” actor admitted that his years-long bout with anxiety stood in the way of his attendance.
“Andy [Samberg] called me and was like, ‘Hey, so we’re doing this short about how, you know, everybody had anxiety…’” Hader said on “Late Night With Seth Meyers” Tuesday. “And when he told me that, I was like, ‘I don’t know if I want to do that.’”
Hader, who left “SNL” in 2013, went on, “He’s like, ‘Why?’ And I’m like, ‘Because I’m anxious. I don’t want to do it.’”
Attempting a Samberg impression, Hader said, “He was like, ‘Come on, man! What do you mean? No!”
The “Superbad” actor, 47, added that “SNL” star Bowen Yang ultimately ended up playing his role in the “Anxiety” skit.
“He was great,” Hader said of Yang, 34.
Elsewhere, Hader praised Meyers’ levelheadedness during his time on the NBC sketch show.
“You were never [anxious],” Hader told Meyers, adding that he and co-star Amy Poehler looked like they had “ice in their veins.”
“You were so calm. You guys went out there, and I was, like, trembling, anxious… And something went wrong, and you went, ‘Whoa, something went wrong? Well, something went wrong.’ And I was like, ‘You can just do that?’”
It’s not the first time Hader has detailed his experience with anxiety.
Speaking to The Post in 2018, the comedian said he feared the ax was about to fall throughout his entire stint on “SNL.”
“At ‘SNL,’ you always feel like you’re going to get fired at any moment. The first four seasons you’re always on shaky ground,” he said at the time. “Like someone’s going to tap you on the shoulder and say, ‘What are you doing?’”
That same year, Hader detailed the part of the sketch show he found to be most challenging.
“It’s just the minute they say, ‘we’re live,’ it’s a level of anxiety I never felt before,” he said. “I was trying everything in my power to remain calm.”
Hader further expanded on his struggles in a 2022 interview.
“Before shows, I would go into a bathroom that was way down this hall, go into a stall and have a full-blown panic attack, crying, the whole thing. And then I go and get in a giant banana costume,” he quipped.
Indeed, in Susan Morrison’s biography “Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live,” the author details how “SNL” honcho Lorne Michaels approached Hader’s anxiousness ahead of shows.
Michaels “is flexible about the talent-management aspect of his producer role. Different personalities, he believes, require different approaches,” reads an excerpt published by The New Yorker.
“To some, Michaels will bark, ‘Don’t fuck it up,’” Morrison went on. “Bill Hader, who is prone to anxiety attacks, remembers Michaels coming to his dressing room when he hosted and snapping, ‘Calm the f–k down. Just have fun. Jesus Christ.’”
“With others, he is warmer. Molly Shannon treasures the memory of how, when she was nervous just before going onstage, Michaels would ‘reassure me with his eyes,’” she added.
