A month later, Shane Gillis discusses the consequences of his Saturday evening live opening monologue.
After sparking controversy by accusing women of “dressing like whores” at the gym, the comedian explained why the NBC sketch show didn’t remove the joke from his monologue for the Oct. 10 episode he hosted.
“Do not defend SNLthey don’t approve of it. I mean, they could shut it down,” he explained on The Joe Rogan Experience. “They could, but you don’t write your set and give it to them. Unless you’re not a comedian. I’m sure non-comedians write the set for them. They have writers who write the monologue for them.
Gillis continued: “The funny thing is, they were like, ‘What’s going on with the monologue?’ And I was like, “It’s not great but I’m not saying anything bad.” 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.’
Having been fired from the cast before its first episode in 2019, Gillis noted that the “hardest thing” about the controversy this time around is not knowing what people are saying on social media.
“The first time I got fired, I stayed on social media and in my head I was like, ‘This guy said shit,’” he said. “This one, I deleted everything immediately. So, I don’t really know.”
Gillis joked that he was “thinking about ousting” comedians who criticized him on their tour dates, “but I’m not going to do that. It was my agent who was joking and suggesting that, and I was like, ‘I don’t think anyone on tour talks shit. So what am I going to get?”
Since the harm received SNL episode, several comedians and actors called out Gillis, including Kathy Griffin, Dan Levy and Inde Navarrette in the following week’s episode, as well as SNL former Ego Nwodim and SNL UKAnia Magliano from her British counterpart’s “Weekend Update”. Meanwhile, Dana Carvey, David Spade and Jimmy Carr showed their support.
Gillis’ final hosting gig on SNL comes after he hosted in 2024 and 2025, following his removal from the NBC sketch comedy’s star cast days after it was announced in 2019. The decision came in response to resurfaced videos of Gillis mocking Asian accents, in addition to using ethnic and gay slurs.
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