not ready for primetime

SNL Boots Shane Gillis After “Offensive, Hurtful and Unacceptable” Remarks

“We were not aware of his prior remarks that have surfaced over the past few days,” said an SNL spokesperson on behalf of Lorne Michaels. “The language he used is offensive, hurtful and unacceptable.”

By Laura Bradley

September 16, 2019

After days of deliberation, NBC has chosen to remove Shane Gillis from its upcoming roster of featured Saturday Night Live performers.

In an emailed statement, an SNL spokesperson speaking on behalf of Lorne Michaels wrote, “After talking with Shane Gillis, we have decided that he will not be joining SNL. 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 statement continued: “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.”

NBC first named Gillis among SNL’s incoming featured players last Thursday—alongside its first-ever cast member fully of Asian descent, Bowen Yang, who started as a writer on the show last year. Within hours, however, freelance comedy writer and editor Seth Simons had resurfaced recent remarks Gillis made on his podcast, Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast—cohosted by Matt McCusker. In the video, recorded last year, Gillis and McCusker discuss Chinatown—and Gillis says, among other things, “Why do the fucking ch*nks live there?” The two go on to denigrate Chinese people’s cuisine, accents, and English-speaking abilities. In another recent video surfaced by Vulture, the two make homophobic and misogynistic remarks.

NBC did not comment publicly on the matter until it issued Monday’s statement confirming Gillis’s removal. Gillis himself responded to reports of this history with a statement that stopped short of an actual apology: “I’m a comedian who pushes boundaries,” he wrote. “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. My intention is never to hurt anyone but I am trying to be the best comedian I can and sometimes that requires risks.”

Following NBC’s statement on Monday, Gillis tweeted an additional statement: “It feels ridiculous for comedians to be making serious public statements but here we are,” he wrote. “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.”