Even after decades of Saturday Night Live fame, Kenan Thompson is still recognized as someone else: his frequent costar and friend, Kel Mitchell.
“I definitely get called Kel a lot,” Thompson told Entertainment Weekly. “People just confidently call me Kel, which is fine because I know what they’re trying to say. They’re just trying to say, ‘I remember you from that show.’ “
Thompson and Mitchell starred together in the hit ’90s Nickelodeon shows All That, Kenan & Kel and the movie Good Burger.
“Kel’s my brother, so I don’t mind pretending to be that name when people call me that,” Thompson, 46, continued. “It is just all love, man. We’ve been very lucky to do a lot of work that makes people happy. So most of the people that approach me are usually doing it out of love and excitement, which is nice.”
The costars have reunited more in recent years, after an estrangement Thompson detailed in his 2023 memoir When I Was Your Age: Life Lessons, Funny Stories & Questionable Advice from a Professional Clown.
Related: Kenan Thompson’s Memoir Revelations: From His and Kel’s Estrangement to the Body Image Issues of a ‘Huggable Cutie’
“By the very end of All That and Kenan & Kel, things got pretty bad. And a lot of that was due to Kel’s funkiness,” Thompson wrote of his friend, also 46.
Thompson revealed that the rift between them turned into “no contact.” He later found out that Mitchell was going through “really serious stuff in his life,” including drug use and mental health issues.
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Prompted by Nickelodeon producer Dan Schneider, Thompson and Mitchell reconciled before filming Good Burger 2.
“[Kel’s] done a fully 180, as far as humility is concerned and cleaning up any kind of bad blood with people he rubbed the wrong way in the past,” Thompson recalled Schneider telling him in 2015. Mitchell and Thompson rebooted Good Burger that year with a sketch on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Related: Good Burger 2‘s Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell Open Up About ‘Brotherhood’ After Drifting Apart (Exclusive)
Over the next few years, the pair were able to put the past behind them and reprise their roles as bumbling burger restaurant employees Dexter and Ed.
“It was just kind of seeking an individual establishment because we were children when we met and then we grew into adults,” Thompson told PEOPLE ahead of Good Burger 2‘s release in 2023. “We had yet to kind of discover what our adult life was like without work being involved.”
Along with a Good Burger reunion, Mitchell made a surprise appearance on SNL in 2022 for a Kenan & Kel spoof. In the sketch, Thompson, Mitchell and host Keke Palmer recreated a dramatic, off-tone episode of the hit comedy show.
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