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saturday night live
Comedian Shane Gillis is set to host Saturday Night Live just five years after being fired from the late-night NBC sketch show.
Gillis will host the February 24th episode with musical guest 21 Savage.
The controversial comedian was announced as a cast member in 2019 but was fired before appearing in a single episode after he was heard using a racial slur in a since-deleted 2018 video posted on the YouTube channel Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast.
“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 statement continued: “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.”
Gillis was originally announced as one of three new cast members for SNL’s Season 45 cast alongside Bowen Yang, who was the first fully Asian and first gay Asian cast member to join the show. In the problematic videos that led to his firing, Gillis mocked a Chinese accent and used homophobic slurs.
At the time, Gillis responded to the videos, saying “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.”
Since being fired from SNL, Gillis has gained popularity as a stand-up comedian, touring around the US. His second comedy special, Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs, was released on Netflix in September 2023.
His very first comedy special, Shane Gillis: Live in Austin, was released on YouTube in 2021.
