Catherine O'Hara clears rumors she was 'scared by somebody' leading to her exit from 'SNL' after 1 week

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Catherine O'Hara opened up about a pivotal moment in her career when she decided to quit 'Saturday Night Live'.

In the early 1980s, the 'Schitt's Creek' actress was cast on the sixth season of 'SNL' but she had to leave the show after a week.

Catherine O'Hare quit 'SNL' to be part of the comedy sketch show SCTV

Speaking to People, O'Hara reflected on her decision to quit SNL as she said, "There’s been BS stories about I was supposedly scared by somebody."

However, before she was cast in the late-night live comedy sketch show, she had already been part of the Canadian comedy sketch show SCTV. However, the nature of her work on SCTV was not consistent.

"Our producer would get a deal with a network, and we’d have a show for a season or two, and then that deal would go away. There’d be a break, then we’d do the show again," the 69-year-old explained.

During one of these breaks from work, O'Hara "got asked to be on 'Saturday Night Live'. And of course, I said yes. Who doesn’t want to do that?"

However, she learned that the SCTV show was picked up again which led to her departure from 'SNL' without ever filming an episode on the show.

"Basically I said, ‘Oh, sorry, I gotta go be with my [comedy] family,’ ” she said.

Catherine O'Hara says it was 'not cool to take a job and leave it'

The 'Penelope' actress said she was "stupid" for not waiting longer to see if SCTV originally known as 'Second City Television' got picked up.

"Yeah, not cool to take a job and leave it. You know what I mean?” she says.

Robin Duke, O'Hara's best friend from high school took the slot she had vacated. "It all worked out the way it was supposed to," she said.

O'Hara's costars on SCTV which ran from 1976 to 1984 included Martin Short, Andrea Martin, Joe Flaherty, Rick Moranis, John Candy, and Eugene Levy.

She and Levy continued to collaborate on multiple projects in Christopher Guest's films including 'Best in Show'.

The duo's collaboration reached new heights with the critically acclaimed Pop comedy series 'Schitt's Creek' which aired from 2015-2020.

"I'll be forever grateful to Eugene and Daniel for giving me that opportunity to develop the role with them and to collaborate,” O'Hara said of the Emmy-winning series Levy co-created with his son, Daniel Levy.