This archive report was first published on 16 September 2019.
Comedian Shane Gillis was announced as one of three new Saturday Night Live cast members last week. However, his hiring was short-lived, as his history of using racist and homophobic slurs in jokes soon emerged.
On September 16, 2019, NBC announced that Gillis would no longer be joining the show, citing his history of making offensive remarks.
"After talking with Shane Gillis, we have decided he will not be joining SNL," a Saturday Night Live spokesman said in a statement. "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 a 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."
The controversy stems from a clip recorded in September 2018 of Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast, during which Gillis made racist comments about Chinese people. A Vulture article published last week also reported that at least one venue in Philadelphia—where Gillis had frequently performed—stopped working with him within the past year due to "racist, homophobic, and sexist things he’s said on and offstage."
On Friday, a VICE reporter discovered additional audio of Gillis making disparaging comments about presidential candidate Andrew Yang. Yang later added that he didn't think Gillis deserved to lose his job.
Reacting to the initial wave of criticism, Gillis tweeted that he was "happy to apologize to anyone who's actually offended by anything I've said." In response to being dropped from SNL, Gillis posted another statement to Twitter, saying, "It feels ridiculous for comedians to be making serious public statements but here we are. I’m a comedian who was funny enough to get SNL. That can’t be taken away. Of course I wanted an opportunity to prove myself at SNL, but I understand it would be too much of a distraction. I respect the decision they made. I’m honestly grateful for the opportunity. I was always a mad tv guy anyway."
