Who Is Emily Lynne Berthold? Kate McKinnon’s Sister, Explained

Quick answer: Emily Lynne Berthold is an American comedian, writer, and voice actor who works under the name Emily Lynne. She’s the younger sister of former “Saturday Night Live” star Kate McKinnon, and the two co-created the Audible comedy series “Heads Will Roll,” whose second season arrived on June 25, 2026.

Most people find Emily Lynne Berthold by searching for someone else. They watch Kate McKinnon do Hillary Clinton or Ruth Bader Ginsburg, learn she has a sister in comedy, and go looking.

What they find is a writer with her own credits going back 15 years, a voice you’ve probably heard without knowing it, and a co-creator credit on one of Audible’s biggest comedy hits. So here’s the full picture, with the shaky claims flagged as shaky.

Who is Emily Lynne Berthold?

She’s a comedian, writer, actress, and voice artist from Long Island, New York. Her professional credit reads Emily Lynne, dropping the surname, which is why searches for the full name pull up biography pages more often than IMDb.

The short version

• Younger sister of Kate McKinnon, born Kathryn Berthold
• Grew up in Sea Cliff, a small village on the North Shore of Long Island
• Studied film at SUNY Purchase
• Voice credits include “Our Cartoon President,” where she played Ivanka and Eric Trump
• Co-creator, co-writer, and co-star of Audible’s “Heads Will Roll”

Why the name confuses people

Kate McKinnon’s legal surname is Berthold. She built her stage name from her mother’s side after starting out, so the sisters share a last name that only one of them uses professionally.

• Legal name: Emily Lynne Berthold
• Screen and audio credit: Emily Lynne
• Instagram handle: @phlegmilylynne, a phlegm joke she’s kept for years

Emily Lynne’s bio at a glance

Growing up in Sea Cliff

Sea Cliff has fewer than 5,000 residents. It’s the kind of village where two sisters with a camcorder can film whatever they want and nobody stops them.

A house that watched comedy on purpose

Their parents were “SNL” fans and pushed both girls toward film and performance early. In a 2015 Refinery29 interview, Kate and Emily said they shot piles of videos together as kids.

• Their father, Michael, worked as an architect
• Their mother, Laura, worked as a parent educator
• Both sisters have credited their parents with the early comedy exposure

Losing their father

Michael Berthold died of brain cancer. Kate has said publicly that he got her watching “SNL” at 12, and she thanked him from an awards stage years later. Emily was younger at the time.

• Sources give conflicting years for his death, so treat any specific date you see with caution
• Kate has spoken about it in interviews; Emily rarely discusses it publicly

Her education and first films

She went to SUNY Purchase to study film, which put her behind the camera before it put her in front of one. That order matters, because a lot of her work since has been writing and directing rather than performing.

What she made in school and just after

• “Pudding Face” (2011), a short comedy she wrote, edited, and directed, with Kate in the cast
• “Five to Places” (2014), a short comedy where she played Theresa
• Editing work at a media production company before her performing credits picked up

What that background gave her

Editing teaches timing, and timing is the whole job in comedy. Her later skit work moves fast and cuts hard, which tracks with someone who spent years in a timeline instead of an acting class.

• Writing and directing credits from age 22 onward
• Comfort with self-produced work, which shows in her social media output today

The acting and voice credits

Emily Lynne’s on-screen résumé is small but real. She’s not a lead-role actress, and she hasn’t chased that.

On camera

• “Friends from College” (2017), a bridesmaid role in one episode
• “The Iliza Shlesinger Sketch Show” (2020) on Netflix, playing Scuzz and Rachel
• “Notary Publix” (2015), a 6-episode web series she co-wrote and co-starred in with Kate for Above Average

In the booth

Voice work is where she’s logged the most hours. On “Our Cartoon President,” the Showtime satire that ran from 2018, she voiced both Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump.

• Multiple seasons of “Our Cartoon President”
• Video game voice credits, including work associated with Rockstar’s “Red Dead Redemption” titles
• Years of narration and character work in the Audible series covered below
• Listeners often say she and Kate sound almost interchangeable in character voices

“Heads Will Roll” and the JoJo years

This is the project that made Emily Lynne Berthold something other than a trivia answer. She and Kate created it, wrote it, and wrote the original songs for it.

What the show actually is

It’s a 10-episode scripted audio comedy produced by Broadway Video for Audible. Kate plays Queen Mortuana, an evil queen with terrible judgment. Emily plays JoJo, her raven sidekick.

• First season landed on Audible in 2019 and reached open podcast feeds later, around 2022
• Guest cast included Meryl Streep, Peter Dinklage, and Tim Gunn
• Audible says the first season hit the New York Times Best Seller list
• The sisters wrote the original songs themselves

Critics kept reaching for hybrid comparisons, calling it part audiobook, part podcast, part Broadway musical. Audible’s content chief later described the show as one of the early hits that shaped what Audible Originals became.

Season 2 in 2026

“Heads Will Roll: Heir Apparent” premiered June 25, 2026. The plot puts Mortuana under a deadline to produce an heir before her 40th birthday, while JoJo turns into a toad after a wing surgery goes wrong.

• Guest cast includes Patti LuPone, Laurie Metcalf, Carrie Coon, Megan Mullally, Jimmy Fallon, and Richard Kind
• Both sisters returned as co-creators, writers, and stars
• They promoted it together on TODAY in June 2026

Her working relationship with Kate McKinnon

Plenty of celebrity siblings get one photo op and a mention. These two have shipped actual work together for over a decade.

The collaboration list

• “Pudding Face” (2011)
• “Notary Publix” (2015), 6 episodes
• “Heads Will Roll” season 1 and the 2026 sequel
• Joint press appearances, including TODAY in 2019 and again in 2026

How they talk about each other

Kate told CBS Mornings in September 2025 that Emily is her best friend. Viewers of their old YouTube clips regularly comment that the sisters sound nearly identical, which makes sense given the voice work both do.

• Kate has said Emily backed her publicly on LGBTQ issues before it was easy to do so
• Emily has stayed largely out of the celebrity press cycle by choice

Also Read: Key Glock Age, Height & Net Worth 2026: The Real Story Behind His Memphis Rise

Personal life and social media

She keeps most of it offline, and what she does share skews goofy rather than glossy.

Marriage and home life

Her partner is Matt Leary, a creative and designer. She discussed being married during the June 2026 TODAY segment, though the sisters haven’t released wedding details, and older articles still call him a boyfriend.

• She’s described herself online as a horror fan and a cat person
• Her cats have appeared in her posts more often than her career news

Leaving stand-up behind

In a May 2023 Instagram post she said she’d stopped doing stand-up shows and felt better for it. Her comedy output shifted to short filmed skits she writes and posts herself.

That call says something about how she works. She’d rather control the edit than chase a room, and the skits let her write, shoot, and cut on her own schedule.

• Instagram: @phlegmilylynne
• An older YouTube channel with a handful of clips, last active around 2017

Emily Lynne Berthold’s net worth: what’s actually verified

Very little. And the numbers circulating online deserve some skepticism.

The figure you’ll see repeated

A cluster of biography sites lists roughly $2.5 million. That number traces back to one or two aggregator pages and gets copied outward with no sourcing behind it. No filing, interview, or reported deal backs it up.

• Emily Lynne has never publicly discussed her finances
• Some sites list her sister’s estimated $9 million and then guess downward, which isn’t a method
• Treat any specific dollar figure for her as speculation

Where her income realistically comes from

• Co-creator, writing, and performing fees from 2 seasons of an Audible Original
• Recurring voice work in animation and games
• Occasional on-camera roles and directing work

Conclusion

Emily Lynne Berthold has spent 15 years making things, mostly quietly, mostly with her sister somewhere in the credits. The Audible series gave her a co-creator credit on a New York Times bestselling comedy, and the 2026 sequel put her back in front of a national audience.

The gaps in her public record are real. Her birth year, her father’s death date, and her finances all get reported with false confidence across the web. What’s solid is the work: the shorts, the voice roles, the web series, and a raven named JoJo.

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