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Shane Gillis was fired from Saturday Night Live, after being fired five years ago.
In a vacuum, this decision by producers should not come as a surprise.
Gillis is a very successful stand-up comedian, whose special on YouTube in 2021 has garnered over 23 million views.
Gillis also filmed a Netflix special titled “Beautiful Dogs,” which cemented his place as a major comedic talent.
And most recently, he agreed to a partnership with Bud Light for a stand-up tour.
Gillis is a funny guy, and he did a solid job, but here’s the thing:
Shane Gillis Fired From ‘Saturday Night Live’ 5 Years Before Hosting Gig
Shane Gillis was hired to be a cast member by Saturday Night Live in 2019. And then he was fired a short time later.
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 used the aforementioned slur while also imitating a Chinese accent by using the word “nooders” instead of noodles.
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.
Shane Has Hosted ‘SNL’ Twice … And It Was All Good
Gillis has hosted SNL not once but twice since he was unceremoniously removed from the show’s roster.
And it seems like there was zero drama on set.
So we guess any beef between the comic and the world’s most famous sketch show is officially … dead from New York.
