Chris Kattan Still Affected After 2001 Live TV Neck Injury

At Saturday Night Live's 50th anniversary, many former cast members returned to the stage. Chris Kattan moved gingerly during the broadcast and appeared to be in pain.

The reason reaches back to 2001, when Kattan broke his neck live on TV during an SNL sketch. He has been dealing with the injury’s physical and mental consequences ever since.

Kattan rose to prominence for his wild physicality on SNL. The show itself was in a period of change in the mid‑1990s as major names departed and a new generation of performers arrived; Kattan joined that wave and was hired by Lorne Michaels in 2001.

Comedy ran in his family: his father, Kip King, was a cartoon voice actor and one of the founders of the Groundlings, and Kattan was part of that troupe before joining SNL.

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