The comedian was announced as one of the cast members of the hit NBC comedy show back in 2019 before he was dropped shortly after a past video saw him making racist joke.
- Feb 26, 2024
AceShowbiz - Shane Gillis addressed his "Saturday Night Live" firing during his hosting debut in the Saturday, February 24 episode of the hit NBC show. The comedian told the audience during his monologue that his hosting duty came after he was let go from the series back in 2019.
"Yeah, I'm here. I was fired from this show a while ago, but don't look that up, please," he said in the episode. "If you don't know who I am, please don't Google that. It's fine. Don't even worry about it."
Later during his monologue, Shane raised people's eyebrows by making a Down Syndrome joke as he shared, "I don't know if you can tell by looking at me, but I do have family members with Down Syndrome. It almost got me! I dodged it, but it nicked me!"
"My niece has Down Syndrome and....," he stopped his sentence as the audience didn't react to his joke well. "I thought that was gonna get a bigger laugh. I thought we were allowed to have fun here!"
Shane admitted that his jokes might not be appropriate for TV. "Look, I don't have any material that can be on TV, all right? I'm trying my best. Also, this place is extremely well-lit. I can see everyone not enjoying it," he revealed to the audience, who didn't seem to be amused. "This is the most nervous I've ever been."
Shane was announced as one of the cast members of "SNL" back in 2019 before he was dropped shortly after a past video saw him making racist joke. At the time, "SNL" creator Lorne Michaels said that they were "not aware" of his past remarks, which he dubbed "offensive, hurtful and unacceptable."
"After talking with Shane Gillis, we have decided that he will not be joining 'SNL'," "SNL" later announced. "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."
