More than a month after his last Saturday evening live monologue sparked outrage, Shane Gillis eventually responded to the backlash, saying he had promised the show there would be “no controversy” before taking the stage.
Speaking on the November 13 episode of The Joe Rogan ExperienceGillis rejected the hypothesis that SNL had approved his material in advance, saying: “Do not defend SNLthey don’t approve of it. Gillis then admitted that he went into the episode expecting an uneventful reception. “The whole time I was like, ‘Guys, I give you a solid C minus a monologue, but I promise there’s no controversy.’ I call myself fat for 10 minutes. That’s all,” he recalls.
Although the monologue was not particularly inflammatory, during part of the October 10 monologue, Gillis joked that “women dress like whores now” at the gym. Dan Levy called the remarks misogynistic, while SNL Actor Kenan Thompson later said he would like to have a “real conversation” with Gillis before another hosting appearance. Weeks later, Obsession star India Navarrette recalled the joke during his own SNL monologue, joking about putting on his “little whore outfit” before hitting the gym while training for his upcoming role as Snape in X-Men.
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Gillis, no stranger to controversy, said he mostly avoided seeing the reactions this time around by deleting his social media. He reflected on this choice in light of his experience in 2019, when SNL fired him days after announcing him as a new cast member following the re-emergence of recordings containing jokes about race and sexuality that drew racist and homophobic criticism. “This time I deleted everything immediately,” he told Rogan. “So, I don’t really know.”
Watch Gillis’ conversation with Rogan and friends and revisit his controversial monologue below.
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