Shane Gillis has been tapped to host the Feb. 24 episode of “Saturday Night Live” – a controversial move considering the comedian was cast and quickly removed from the late-night sketch show in 2019. He will be joined by a musical guest 21 wild.
Hours after it was announced that Gillis would be joining “SNL” in 2019, videos surfaced on social media of him making racist, homophobic, Islamophobic and misogynistic jokes on his own podcast and other media.
A week later, NBC dropped him from the cast. “After discussions with Shane Gillis, we have decided that he will not be joining ‘SNL,'” a spokesperson said at the time on behalf of executive producer Lorne Michaels. “We want ‘SNL’ to have a diversity of voices and points of view within the show, and we hired Shane based on his talent as a comedian and his impressive audition for ‘SNL.’ We were not aware of his previous comments that surfaced in recent days. The language he used is offensive, hurtful and unacceptable. We apologize that we did not see these clips sooner and that our review process did not meet our standards.”
Gillis also released a statement saying, “It feels ridiculous for comedians to make serious public statements, but here we are. I’m a comedian who was funny enough to get “SNL.” That cannot be taken 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 the decision they made. I’m honestly grateful for the opportunity. I was always a TV nut [sic] anyway dude.”
Among Gillis’ resurfaced comments were the use of anti-Asian, homophobic and ableist slurs.