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When comedian Shane Gillis was dropped from “Saturday Night Live” in 2019, just days after the announcement that he had been added to the cast for season 45, he lost one of the most sought-after jobs in comedy. Immediately after his addition to the cast, multiple instances emerged of him using language that the show called “offensive, hurtful and unacceptable” in a statement about his dismissal.
Among the inflammatory language he had used, on his podcast and others, was an insult referring to Chinese people, along with a cartoonish accent and a homophobic insult, with which he profiled filmmaker Judd Apatow and comedian Chris Gethard, as well as Democratic presidential candidates Andrew Yang and Senator Bernie Sanders (the latter two preceded by the word “Jew”). “Fat, ugly idiots promoting hate, that’s what this is,” he said, mocking himself and those he was speaking to.
Gillis could have become a pariah. Instead, on Saturday he will make his debut on NBC’s historic Studio 8H stage as a host.
Since his firing, Gillis’s star has risen rapidly: his debut special, released on YouTube in 2021, has accumulated around 24 million views; and his podcast with Matt McCusker, “Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast,” in which some of the problematic statements were made, has the most subscribers of any podcast on Patreon with more than 80,000 paying listeners, tens of thousands more than the next largest. He has also toured rigorously, performing on comedy stages throughout the United States and the world.
It reached new heights in September with the release of Netflix’s “Beautiful Dogs,” which had a long run on the streamer’s top 10 most popular shows list. In that special, he walked the line between lampooning conservatives and playing games with them, according to New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman, who described his opening bit as “silly and smart, cocky and sneering, homophobic but relentlessly self-critical.” aware.”
“Don’t be surprised if it becomes an arena act,” Zinoman added.
A few weeks ago, Bud Light announced it was partnering with Gillis. “Welcome to the team,” the published mark on Instagram along with a photo of the comedian. Bud Light has been struggling to contain the fallout, which included falling sales, since last year’s right-wing backlash toward Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender influencer, promoting the beer on Instagram.
Gillis’ history of offensive language seemed to catch “SNL” off guard at the time of his hiring. “We want ‘SNL’ to have a variety of voices and points of view within the show, and we hired Shane because of his talent as a comedian and his impressive audition for ‘SNL,'” a spokesperson said in a statement. on behalf of Lorne Michaels, the show’s creator and longtime executive producer. “We regret that we did not see these clips sooner and that our investigation process was not up to our standards.”
But in 2021, in his first of many appearances on the controversial “Joe Rogan Experience,” Spotify’s No. 1 podcast for four consecutive years: Gillis said he had told “SNL” about the tone of his podcast. Michaels asked him, Gillis recalled, “Do you have anything you want us to look at?” Gillis responded that he had a podcast in which “I say a lot about liking gays and retards.” According to Gillis, “they said, ‘Oh, okay, don’t worry.'”
Representatives for Gillis did not respond to a request for comment.
In the brief period after his comments came to light, but before his firing, Gillis, on social media, said: “I am a boundary-pushing comedian. Sometimes I am wrong,” and he added: “I am pleased to apologize to anyone who has been offended by anything I have said.”
After his dismissal, he said: “I respect the decision they made. I am sincerely grateful for the opportunity. I was always a MadTV guy anyway,” referring to the rival Fox sketch show that originally aired from 1995 to 2009.
Gillis would have joined the cast of “SNL” alongside Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman. Yang was the show’s first Chinese-American cast member in its 50-year history and one of its first openly gay male comedians. He did not respond to a request for comment, and the “SNL” cast has remained silent about Gillis’ previous comments and her anticipated debut.
In 2020, Yang told The Times: “The reason I didn’t comment on it was because it was creating a sense of opposition between the two of us, right?” he said. “But a lot of it was made up because it wasn’t like he was making any comments about me specifically.”
On Wednesday, “SNL” mocked the episode on YouTubepublishing a parody of Gillis working on his monologue, with appearances by cast members Sarah Sherman and Marcello Hernández.
While Gillis’ firing might be among the most unusual in “SNL” history, as he never appeared on the show, Gillis is just one of a long list of those who have been fired or ousted.
Most of the departures, including Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, Norm Macdonald, Gilbert Gottfried, Ann Risley, Robert Downey Jr., Joan Cusack, Chris Rock and Sarah Silverman, were the result of budget concerns, infighting, executive turnover, creative differences or declining ratings. . Others’ careers were marred by unfortunate mistakes: Jenny Slate, for example, accidentally used a slur in her first sketch and was fired after one season.
While hosting “SNL” in 1999, about a year and a half after he was fired, Macdonald memorably used his monologue to roast the show itself. “I wanted to keep my job and they felt exactly the opposite,” he said of NBC management, who Macdonald said told him he wasn’t funny enough.
“How did I go,” he wondered, “from not being funny enough to be allowed in the building to being so funny that I’m now the host of the show?” How did I suddenly become so fucking funny? It was inexplicable to me.”
“Then it occurred to me,” he said in a nervous tone, “I haven’t gotten any funnier; the show has gotten really bad.”
And while hosting in 2019, Sandler, in his first return to “SNL” since his firing in 1995 after five years on the show, used his monologue to sing a song titled “I Was Fired.”
“I never saw it coming,” he crooned, adding that it left him “sad and sad” and broke his “heart into pieces.” “NBC said it was over, then I made over $4 billion at the box office, so I guess you could say I won.”
Whether Gillis will end up winning to that extent remains to be seen, but those following his saga will likely tune in on Saturday to see whether he will lead with his so-called boundary-pushing style or take a more measured tone.