Bobby Moynihan’s Close Call: Puking on Set Seconds Before Sketch with Gerard Butler

A ‘Beauty and the Beast’ sketch nearly went wrong when Moynihan played Cogsworth

Kelly Wynne has been a TV writer at PEOPLE digital since 2021. Her work has been seen in Newsweek, where she acted as a reality TV and true-crime writer, Atwood Magazine and her mental health blog, The Chronically.

Bobby Moynihan and Gerard Butler. PHOTO: ETHAN MILLER/FILMMAGIC; DANIELE VENTURELLI/WIREIMAGE

Saturday Night Live wasn’t all laughs for Bobby Moynihan.

Gerard Butler unwittingly got caught up in an uncomfortable moment for the comic when Moynihan, now 46, got sick during the long-running sketch show’s live taping.

“I started to have weird things where it was like, I had diverticulosis, I was getting cramps,” he told Anthony Atamanuik on Wondery’s Don’t Panic podcast. “So I was like, What happens if I get a cramp on live television and I can’t speak? And then it happened and you just power through.”

Back in 2009, Moynihan dutifully took his place moments after getting violently ill when Butler, now 54, was hosting. “I was really sick one night and threw up in a garbage can and then you’re on live television five seconds later … you learn to deal with it,” he said. “You learn to throw up in a garbage can and then talk to Gerard Butler five seconds later. That’s a real thing that happened. He was dressed like the Beast and I was dressed as Cogsworth. Oy….”

Moynihan was an SNL cast member from 2008 through 2017.

During his time on the sketch show, he embodied a wide variety of fictional and real-life characters, including Jersey Shore’s Snooki, Andrea Bocelli, George R.R. Martin, Tony Soprano and Mama June Shannon from Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.

Bobby Moynihan, Kristen Wiig, Gerard Butler and Bill Hader on SNL circa 2009. DANA EDELSON/NBCU PHOTO BANK/NBCUNIVERSAL VIA GETTY IMAGES VIA GETTY

He issued an Instagram statement on his decision to leave the comedy series in after almost 10 years. “Last night, Kenan Thompson, Tom Hanks, Alec Baldwin and Pete Davidson carried me off that stage for the last time as a cast member,” he wrote of his final episode.

“The fifth longest running cast member of all time. I’m very proud of that and my time there. I am a huge fan of SNL. Always have been. Always will be. Endless thanks to the best and most hard working cast and crew in television. I love them so much it’s stupid.”