Shortly after SNL announced three new cast members for season 45, a video featuring one of the featured players went viral. In footage resurfaced on Twitter by Seth Simons, comedian Shane Gillis — who was hired to the sketch series, along with Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman — can be heard using a racial slur during a September 2018 episode of his podcast Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast. “Chinatown’s f*cking nuts” he tells co-host Matt McCusker during the conversation. “Let the f*cking ch*nks live there.”
Vulture‘s Megh Wright found other instances of Gillis making racist, sexist, and homophobic comments in the recent past, including calling comedians like Judd Apatow and Chris Gethard “white f*ggot comics” and “f*cking gayer than ISIS” and claiming “white chicks are literally the bottom… Ali Wong is making it so Asian chicks are funnier than white chicks.” He was also prohibited from performing at the Good Good Comedy Theatre in Philadelphia “within the past few years because of racist, homophobic, and sexist things he’s said on and offstage,” according to co-owner Kate Banford.
Gillis has since responded to the backlash over his remarks, posting on Twitter, “I’m a comedian who pushes boundaries. I sometimes miss. If you got through my 10 years of comedy, most of it bad, you’re going to find a lot of misses. I’m happy to apologize to anyone who’s actually offended by anything I’ve said.” (He’s “happy to apologize,” but doesn’t actually, y’know, apologize.) He added, “My intention is never to hurt anyone but I am trying to be the best comedian I can be and sometimes that requires risks.”
https://twitter.com/sasimons/status/1172257211697025025
SNL returns on September 28 with Woody Harrelson and Billie Eilish.
(Via Twitter and Vulture)
