One of ‘SNL’s Biggest Stars Was Never the Same After a Freak Live TV Accident

Saturday Night Live‘s 50th anniversary show was a big success as cast members from the beginning until now showed up for the celebration. If you were watching the broadcast on NBC (which is now available to stream on Peacock), you might have noticed that one former cast member was moving quite gingerly. Chris Kattan, one of SNL‘s most popular names in the late ’90s and early 2000s, looked like he was in pain as he moved around the stage. So what’s that about? The truth is much more shocking. In 2001, Kattan broke his neck live on TV during a Saturday Night Live sketch. He has been dealing with the physical and mental consequences ever since.

Chris Kattan Was Known for His Wild Physicality on ‘SNL’

In the mid-1990s, Saturday Night Live was going through a time of big change, as major names like Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, and Chris Rock started to leave the show. Going into the latter half of the decade, SNL nearly started from scratch, hiring new future featured players such as Will Ferrell, Tracy Morgan, Darrell Hammond, Cheri Oteri, and Ana Gasteyer. Another impactful name brought in was Kattan. Kattan was seemingly born for comedy, as his father, Kip King, was a cartoon voice actor and one of the founders of the sketch comedy troupe The Groundlings. Kattan ended up being part of The Groundlings, too, leading to Lorne Michaels hiring him for Saturday Night Live in 2001.

Kattan became one of the biggest names in the cast thanks to his willingness to do anything. He could do celebrity impressions, but what he became most known for was three original characters. One was the flamboyant exotic danger named Mango, and another was Mr. Peepers, with Kattan stripping down, putting on bigger ears, and jumping around like a monkey while he devoured apples, with bits of fruit flying everywhere. His physicality became so well known that there’s a scene in Jordan Peele‘s Nope where Jupe (Steven Yeun) is talking about the terrifying chimp scene from the film being portrayed in a fictional SNL sketch. And who should play the chimpanzee? Kattan.

Kattan was also known for his recurring sketch as one of the Butabi brothers alongside Will Ferrell, two eccentric men who like to bob their heads to “What Is Love” by Haddaway. They think they are cool even as every woman rejects them. The sketches were so popular that they even led to a feature film, 1998’s A Night at the Roxbury. Everything was going right for Kattan, until it really wasn’t.

Chris Kattan Broke His Neck During an ‘SNL’ Sketch

In 2019, Kattan wrote a memoir titled Baby, Don’t Hurt Me: Stories and Scars from Saturday Night Live. In it, he details the highs and lows of being a famous cast member on one of America’s most well-known shows, but the lowest of lows for Kattan came during the May 12, 2001, episode. He was involved in a sketch parodying The Golden Girls, when Kattan’s character began to shake wildly, as he often did. Kattan flailed about so much that he fell back in his chair, tipping it over as intended, but when he did, he landed on the back of his head.

Kattan went on with the rest of the show as normal despite being in a lot of pain. He continued with Saturday Night Live until 2003, and no one knew what had happened, or why he largely disappeared from acting in the years right after. Finally, in 2017, when he was cast on Dancing With the Stars, Kattan sort of came clean, wanting to explain why his dancing was so rigid and stiff. He said that he had broken his neck in the past without going into detail. Kattan ended up being the first contestant eliminated.

In Baby Don’t Hurt Me, Kattan revealed the whole story about how he injured himself. He hoped that the pain would just eventually go away, but nearly a year later, with the pain worse, his chiropractor got him to finally see a doctor, where it was discovered he had broken his neck. In total, Kattan has had five surgeries, but Saturday Night Live wasn’t there to support him for all of it. In his book, Kattan wrote:

“NBC had stopped paying my medical costs after the second surgery. The ‘SNL’ family I was part of had stopped taking care of me, and soon I wasn’t able to pay for everything myself.”

Kattan admits that he didn’t handle things the right way. He tried to hide his injury, pretending that everything was fine, because he didn’t want to sue anyone. However, in an interview with Variety, he said he wishes now that he’d stuck up for himself, because he waited so long that he could no longer get workers’ compensation. “It’s a different day and age where people, if they get any injury or harassment or anything, it’s a good time to say anything about it. This is not too long ago, but it was more of a faux pas to say anything, especially if it has to do with your showbiz family.”

Chris Kattan’s Career Has Suffered Because of His Injury

Image via Touchstone Pictures

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In another interview with Variety, Kattan said that he’s 95% okay now, thanks to physical therapy, but he does have limitations due to permanent nerve damage, including not being able to fully open and close his hands. Still, he admits, “There is a lot of pain involved.” The pain for Kattan hasn’t just been physical, either. As has sadly happened with too many people who have had a serious injury, Kattan then found himself addicted to painkillers. That led to an arrest and the end of his marriage. After marrying model Sunshine Deia Tutt in 2008, the pair divorced just months later. In his memoir, he wrote, “The impact that my injury and subsequent surgeries had on my career was immense, but more importantly, the fallout proved to be devastating to some of the closest relationships in my life.”

Five months after his SNL accident, Kattan was the lead in the feature film Corky Romano. It was a critical bust, with a lowly 7% on Rotten Tomatoes, but it made a respectable $24 million domestically at the box office. Later in the 2000s, he was still acting, but here and there, in small, forgotten movies, or doing guest spots on TV shows and voice work. That’s still not a bad career, but it’s a big fall off for someone who was once just as big as Will Ferrell.

Thankfully, he has turned his life around. He told Variety, “Comedy is what brought me out of it. I was born to be funny and to perform comedy.” Kattan, who said he was once ashamed of going outside because he didn’t want to be judged for his appearance, is now doing stand-up comedy regularly. He also found love again, getting engaged in 2023 to his girlfriend, Maria Libri. Thankfully, he was at Saturday Night Live‘s big 50th celebration, standing on the stage where he belonged.

Saturday Night Live is now available to stream on Peacock.