shane-gillis

SNL fires new new cast member Shane Gillis for racist/homophobic comments

shane-gillis

On Friday (9/13), Saturday Night Live announced its new cast hires for the upcoming 45th season, including the series’ first-ever Asian American castmember, Brooklyn comedian Bowen Yang (who joined the SNL staff as a writer last year), improviser Chloe Fineman, and stand-up comic Shane Gillis. It was only a couple hours later on Friday when clips from Gillis’ podcast, Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast, surfaced where he can be heard making racist jokes, homophobic slurs and more.

Probably not a big surprise, but Gillis has now been let go from SNL. “After talking with Shane Gillis, we have decided that he will not be joining SNL,” an SNL spokesperson wrote in a statement on behalf of SNL creator Lorne Michaels. “We want SNL to have a variety of voices and points of view within the show, and we hired Shane on the strength of his talent as comedian and his impressive audition for SNL. We were not aware of his prior remarks that have surfaced over the past few days. The language he used is offensive, hurtful and unacceptable. We are sorry that we did not see these clips earlier, and that our vetting process was not up to our standard.”

Season 45 of SNL debuts September 28 with host Woody Harrelson and musical guest Billie Eilish, and then Fleabag creator/star Phoebe Waller-Bridge hosts on October 5 with Taylor Swift as musical guest.