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On February 24, Shane Gillis will host Saturday Night Live.
In a vacuum, this decision by producers should not come as a surprise… considering Gillis is a very successful stand-up comedian whose special on YouTube in 2021 has garnered over 23 million views.
Gillis also has filmed a Netflix special titled “Beautiful Dogs,” which was released last September.
And most recently, he agreed to partnership with Bud Light for his upcoming stand-up tour.
Gillis is a funny guy and will probably do a solid job, but here’s the thing:
Shane Gillis was hired to be a cast member by Saturday Night Live in 2019. And then he was fired a short time later by Saturday Night Live.
Like, days later.
Ahead of Season 45, executives reversed course on Gillis’ hiring after a clip of him using an anti-Asian slur on his podcast went viral on Twitter.
On one installment of his podcast with fellow Matt McCusker, the hosts riffed about Chinatown, prompting to Gillis use the aforementioned slur while also imitating a Chinese accent by using the word “nooders” instead of noodles.
“Let the f-ckin ch-nks live there,” Gillis said at the time.
Gillis apologized and also said he was “comedian who pushes boundaries” that sometimes misses the mark, stating he may very continue to make jokes that some deemed to be inappropriate.
It may not have helped Shane’s cause back then that the show had also just hired Bowen Yang, its first-ever Asian-American cast member.
“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,” a spokesperson for executive producer Lorne Michaels told NBC News in 2019.
“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.”
Not permanently, though, apparently.
It should be rather interesting to see how this topic is addressed when Gillis takes to the stage on February 24.
Get your popcorn ready, folks!
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