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Shane Gillis is set to hostSaturday Night Liveon February 24, with musical guest 21 Savage at 30 Rock. The news came out on the late-night live sketch comedy variety show, which featuredThe Bear‘s Ayo Edebiri.
The stand-up comedian got hired as a new cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series in 2019, only to be fired five days later. He received his marching orders for using racial and homophobic slurs in 2018’sMatt and Shane’s Secret Podcastepisode. The video has been deleted now.
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At first, Shane Gillis was set to joinSNLas a new featured player. But plans changed when an old video of him surfaced in which he used a racial slur against Asians.
In the YouTube video (viaThe Hollywood Reporter), he was seen saying,“Chinatown’s fcking nuts. Let the fcking ch—s live there.”Gillis was also seen mimicking a Chinese accent and making fun of Chinese restaurants.
After public backlash, anSNLspokesperson, on behalf of creator Lorne Michaels, stated that Gillis wouldn’t be part of the program. They said at 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 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.”
After NBC fired him, Gillis took to Twitter, writing he was“always a Mad TV guy anyway.”Later on Instagram, he posted an apology (viaPeople):
“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.”
New cast members who joined the 45th season ofSNLin Gillis’ absence were Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman. Ironically, Gillis, who used a derogatory term for Chinese people, got hired whenSNLwelcomed its first Chinese-American cast member, Bowen Yang, who is also gay.
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Fans Reactions on Shane Gillis’SNLReturn
Shane Gillis is famous for his podcast,Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast,co-hosted with Matt McCusker. The podcast consistently ranks high on Apple and holds the top spot on Patreon. Gillis is also part of YouTube’sGilly & Keeves, a sketch series co-created and co-written with John McKeever.
Despite his social media success and a top-ranking Apple podcast, along with a Netflix special, the 36-year-old has been receiving criticism for his recent LGBTQ jokes. See what they have to say:
SNL is actually dead now.
— Matt Blake (@mattblake94)July 13, 2025
— Kathy (@kdusc)June 15, 2025
Shane Gillis hosting SNL in a few weeks? Gross.
Idfc if he apologized, the intent he had was racist and homophobic
— kaitlyn (@kdanbaybe)June 22, 2025
Um, What? Wasn’t Shane Gillis, the comedian who was under fire for using racist and homophobic slurs on his podcast & was fired from Saturday Night Live? So now he is good enough to host#SNL?https://t.co/yYBHVmMIh0
— G-Barb ☮🐾🎼📚🎬🐶⚖️💙🇺🇦🌻🌴🥥💜🐾 (@wilycyotee)July 17, 2025
What’s the rationale for him to host?Shane Gillis to Host ‘SNL’ After Being Fired in 2019 for Racial, Homophobic Slurshttps://t.co/X2m2aIEZTavia@thr
— Potshots from the Peanut Gallery 🗳️ (@reviewingstand)August 08, 2025
https://twitter.com/maeisafraid/status/1754015836954599929
Gillis is popular for his gay jokes and pro-conservative takes. During a comedy skit, the sketch writer said (posted viaComedy Corner):
“Gay Vikings. Dude, you’re just some villager looking out on the shoreline. See a bunch of Viking long ships coming. You’re like, ‘oh no, it’s the Vikings. They’re gonna rpe our wives and daughters.’ They then they pull up their fcking rainbow flag on their boat. You’re just like, oh f*ck.”
In the comedy skit, Gillis made fun of Vikings by showing them differently than usual. He joked by turning around the idea that Vikings are tough fighters, suggesting it’s funny or strange that they would support LGBTQ pride unexpectedly.
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Watch Shane Gillis hostingSaturday Night Liveon NBC and Peacock on 24th February, 2024.
Shreya Jha
Articles Published :1042
Meet Shreya, FandomWire’s go-to Pop-Culture Writer. She holds a master’s degree in Journalism and a pop culture obsession that rivals even the most die-hard ‘Star Wars’ and Marvel fans.Her articles have been published in Animated Times, Creator Mail, and The Luxxe Mag. When Shreya’s not busy dishing out hot takes, she is lost in the world of rom-coms.
