Comedian Shane Gillis is back as host of “SNL” after being fired from the cast in 2019 for making racist, homophobic and misogynistic comments.
During the February 24 episode, Gillis was not shy about the elephant in the room, briefly acknowledging his firing in his opening monologue.
“I'm here,” he said. “Most of you don't know who I am. I was actually – I was fired from this show a while ago. But, you know, please don't watch it. If you don't know who I am, don't Google it. This is good. Don't even worry about it.”
Gillis was fired from the show a week after it was announced she would be joining the SNL cast. A statement was released on behalf of longtime executive producer Lorne Michaels: “We want 'SNL' to have a variety of voices and perspectives within the show, and we hired Shane based on the strength of his talent as a comedian and on 'SNL.' Impressive censorship for. We were not aware of his prior comments coming out in the last few days. The language he used was hurtful, hurtful and unacceptable. We regret that we did not see these clips earlier and our vetting process was not up to our standards.
Gillis also commented on his firing on social media: “It feels ridiculous for comedians to make serious public statements, but here we are. I'm a comedian who had fun getting on SNL. It cannot be carried away. Of course I wanted a chance to prove myself on SNL, but I understand that would be too much of a distraction. I respect their decision. I am sincerely grateful for the opportunity. I've always been a TV freak [sic] Boy anyway.”
Since his firing in 2019, Gillis has co-hosted the popular podcast “Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast” and appeared in the Netflix comedy special “Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs,” set for release in 2023.
Watch Gillis' full opening monologue below.
