Shane Gillis will not be part of the Saturday Night Live family after all.
The comedian has been let go from the gig following a series of racist and homophobic comments coming to light.
“After talking with Shane Gillis, we have decided that he will not be joining SNL,” says a show spokesperson on behalf of SNL boss Lorne Michaels.
“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 comedian and his impressive audition for SNL.”
“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.”
As for what Gillis had to say about his firing, he took to Twitter shortly after with a statement of his own.
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“It feels ridiculous for comedians to making serious public statements but here we are,” Gillis wrote on Monday.
“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 [MADtv] guy anyway.”
Gillis was one of three new cast members announced for Saturday Night Live Season 45.
Mere hours after the casting announcement, Twitter was ablast with clips of Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast.
One of those clips found Gillis using a racial slur to describe people living in New York’s Chinatown.
(to clarify I mean the YouTube page; you can still find audio files here https://t.co/Jpkyyqztor)
— Seth Simons (@sasimons) 12 September 2019
Gillis did respond to the backlash that day.
“I’m a comedian who pushes boundaries,” he said via Twitter.
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“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 be and sometimes that requires risks.”
What are your thoughts on this?
Did he deserve to be fired?
Paul Dailly is the Associate Editor for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.