After getting fired from ‘SNL’ for antigay jokes, Netflix rewards comic Shane Gillis with his very own special
Saturday Night Live has made significant steps toward a more inclusive show in recent years—out cast member Bowen Yang has become one of the sketch series’ undeniable highlights, while Molly Kearney became its first nonbinary star in 2022—it’s not been without a few steps back.You may remember (or, hey, maybe you don’t!) in 2019, the same time Yang and Chloe Fineman were announced as featured players, SNL also hired on a comedian named Shane Gillis.At the time, Gillis was best known as a stand-up comic with a pretty successful podcasting career under his belt.
He wasn’t necessarily an obvious choice for a sketch and character heavy comedy show, but SNL‘s had success adding stand-ups to the cast before—just look at Pete Davidson.Anyway, Gillis’ time on SNL didn’t last very long… actually, it didn’t even start!The very day his casting was announced, folks resurfaced some troubling clips from from his not-too-distant past on the podcast Matt And Shane’s Secret Podcast, in which the comic used a number of ethnic slurs and he and his co-host ranked other comedians by race, gender, and sexual orientation—using a few gay slurs they definitely shouldn’t have been using.In other words, Matt And Shane’s Secret Podcast wasn’t so secret.The response was swift.
Longtime fans of SNL demanded the show rescind its decision to hire Gillis, and a mere four days later, a spokesperson for series creator Lorne Michaels announced the comic had been removed.Sources now say SNL hired Gillis to appeal to conservative viewers.In the ensuing days, Gillis tweeted an apology (itself widely criticized), stating, “I’m a comedian who pushes boundaries… if you go through my 10 years of comedy, most of it bad, you’re going to find a lot of bad misses.
