Shane Gillis‘ stint on Saturday Night Live was more than just short-lived: The controversial stand-up comedian was famously fired from the show just days after his casting was announced. And while a statement at the time attributed the shocking decision to Lorne Michaels, the SNL boss now says the decision actually came from the network.
“That was very strong from the people in charge,” Michaels recently told the Wall Street Journal. “And obviously I was not on that side, but I understood it.”
Gillis was fired in 2019 after several controversial moments from his podcast Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast resurfaced, showing him using a racial slur against Asians amongst other problematic comments. A Vulture report from that time also notes that he had been banned from a Philadelphia comedy club “because of racist, homophobic, and sexist things he’s said on and offstage.”
Michaels, who has since kept in touch with the stand-up comedian, defended Gillis. “He said something stupid, but it got blown up into the end of the world,” he said. “I was angry. I thought, ‘You haven’t seen what we’re going to do, and what I’m going to try to bring out in him, because I thought he was the real thing.’”
Gillis’ firing was announced via a statement from a SNL spokesperson reportedly on behalf of Michaels, which said, “After talking with Shane Gillis, we have decided that he will not be joining 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.”
The statement also went on to apologize for the network’s vetting process, noting it “was not up to our standard.”
Michaels has previously said it was a “bad time” for the network as advertisers were threatening to “boycott the show.”
But Gillis got the last hurrah when he later returned to host in February 2024.
The comedian also recently revealed that he turned down Michaels’ offer to join this season in a regular capacity to impersonate Donald Trump ahead of the presidential election.
“They said, ‘Are you serious? You’re going to say no?’ I said, ‘Lorne, I’ve got to go to Coke Magic,'” he said at the Skankfest comedy festival. The role instead went to SNL cast member James Austin Johnson, who has been doing Trump impressions since joining the show.
Gillis’ comedy career has not slowed down despite this setback.
The comedian had a brief stint on Pete Davidson‘s short-lived series Bupkis in 2023, as well as a role in Gilly and Keeves. More recently, he’s been impersonating Trump on the Kill Tony podcast series and helming his own Netflix comedy, Tires.