Melissa Villaseñor left ‘SNL’ for mental health reasons after having panic attacks
Melissa Villaseñor, whose comedy career in “Saturday Night Live” helped turn it into a massive international hit, had two panic attacks at once during an interview with a journalist in New York City.
The 26-year-old, whose debut appearance on the late-night sketch comedy show is set to air this weekend, was asked if she had suffered from anxiety before.
“Yeah, yeah, sure,” she admitted. “I’ve had two panic attacks at once for a long time. It’s something I’ve been dealing with since I was 16, but I think the thing was I had anxiety in my 20s.” She then began to cry.
A spokesman for NBC, which airs the show, has said that Villaseñor’s health has been “under the scrutiny” of the network and plans to explore whether there are any “new avenues for Melissa’s health to be addressed.”
“SNL” and the former “Friends” actress have been open about her struggles with anxiety since her show’s return, and her performance on the show has won her a number of praise from both critics and fans.
Villaseñor, who won a “Saturday Night Live” contest in 2012, was already a big star when it was revived in the mid-2000s. She is an Oscar nominee for roles in “Blue Valentine” and “Loving,” and a Golden Globe winner for her work in “The Fighter,” before she scored a breakout role as a single mom on the hit Fox sitcom “New Girl.”
Villaseñor’s comedy career was on hold when she was a young student, working part time to get by and trying to make it in show business after she was rejected from Yale. But she was able to make a go of it once she was accepted at the School of Theater and Dance at The Juilliard School.
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