Comedian Shane Gillis joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 2019 – and was fired four days after his hiring after using language that was deemed “offensive, hurtful and unacceptable.”
Now, he’s going to be hosting the show.
He’s Back
The New York Post reports, “Gillis, 36, was initially hired by the iconic comedy show in 2019 but was fired shortly after when a 2018 YouTube video of the comedian using a racial slur on ‘Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast’ was brought to light.”
“According to Decider, the since-deleted video of Gillis contained the Pennsylvania native mocking Chinese accents as well as saying various homophobic slurs,” the Post noted.
The story continued:
“After talking with Shane Gillis, we have decided that he will not be joining SNL,’” said a spokesperson for the show at the time. “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.”
“The language he used is offensive, hurtful and unacceptable,” the statement continued. “We are sorry that we did not see these clips earlier, and that our vetting process was not up to our standard.”
Had he taken his place in the hallowed halls of “SNL,” Gillies would have starred in the show’s 45th season alongside the funny man Bowen Yang, who is the program’s first gay Asian cast member to join the show.
When he got fired, Gillis said, “I’m a comedian who pushes boundaries. I sometimes miss. If you go through my 10 years of comedy, most of it bad, you’re going to find a lot of bad misses.
“I’m happy to apologize to anyone who’s actually offended by anything I’ve said,” he added.
From Canceled to Host
Being fired by SNL might have been the best thing that could have happened to Gillis, as his comedy specials on YouTube and Netflix turned out to be massive successes.
And now he’s back on SNL – as a host, no less.
Maybe getting ‘canceled’ was his greatest career move of all.
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