So, this morning the Internet had itself a nice little feeding frenzy over the TMZ-reported news that Saturday Night Live‘s Kenan Thompson, would be leaving the sketch stalwart after this forthcoming season. It seemed fairly legitimate, and so everyone started reporting on it. But then the folks over at SNL were all “oh wait, hey…not so fast!” and stated that the whole thing was “inaccurate as the season hasn’t even started and cast decisions aren’t made until the end of the season.”

So — is Kenan Thompson leaving Saturday Night Live? Possibly/maybe but no one’s going to tell you yet. Looking at some of the facts and heresy floating ’round the innertubes, one might assume that it wouldn’t be so far-fetched an idea that Thompson would want to fly the coop at long last, even if he did tell Entertainment Weekly just last year, “I’m never leaving.” Because, hey man, things change.

What’s most interesting is the fact that, though SNL denied that any casting decisions for the season after next had been made, it did not directly respond to the claims levied in the TMZ report. According to the outlet, Thompson was the one who has the intention of leaving — something that would, at least at first, have nothing to do with the good ship SNL itself. It is also interesting to note that Thompson allegedly planned to leave last year, according to the same TMZ report, but stayed at the behest of Lorne Michaels given how much turnover there already was coming into last season.

All of which would make sense, considering Thompson’s overall deal with NBC and the race kerfuffle he got dragged into/played a part of with his comments about why there hadn’t been a black female comedian on the series since Maya Rudolph’s exit in 2007 — with so many new faces and changes coming to the series, in addition to his own personal life, why not try out something new, eh? Given that he joined the series back in 2003 and has become the longest tenured African American comedian in the show’s history, the time to strike out on his own might just be now.

Until then we’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?

What do you think: will Thompson leave at the end of this season? Let us hear your thoughts in the comments.