Celebrity News

Shane Gillis fired from ‘SNL’ after racist jokes resurface

Comic Shane Gillis has been axed from “Saturday Night Live” over racist and homophobic comments — just days after he was named as a new cast member, Page Six has learned.

Gillis was announced as the latest addition to its 45th season on Thursday, along with openly gay Asian comic Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman.

However, both NBC and Gillis came under fire after the comedian’s racist and homophobic remarks he made within the last year on his podcast resurfaced.

And in a statement, an “SNL” spokesperson on behalf of “SNL” boss Lorne Michaels, told Page Six: “After talking with Shane Gillis, we have decided that he will not be joining ‘SNL.’

“We want ‘SNL’ to have a variety of voices and points of view within the show, and we hired Shane on the strength of his talent as comedian and his impressive audition for ‘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. We are sorry that we did not see these clips earlier, and that our vetting process was not up to our standard.”

Gillis did offer to apologize, tweeting: “I’m a comedian who pushes boundaries. I sometimes miss.

“If you go through my 10 years of comedy, most of it bad, you’re going to find a lot of bad misses. I’m happy to apologize to anyone who’s actually offended by anything I’ve said. My intention is never to hurt anyone but I am trying to be the best comedian I can be and sometimes that requires risks.”

In a since-deleted video from 2018, which was shared on Twitter by writer Seth Simons, Gillis makes racist jokes about Chinese people, calling them offensive names.

“Chinatown’s f–king nuts,” Gillis told comedian Matt McCusker on Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast.

“Let the f–king ch—s live there,” he adds, later saying that he was at a restaurant “full of f–king Chinee [sic] in there.”

People online have been finding more anti-Asian comments have been brought up.

Meanwhile, Vulture noted that Gillis allegedly has a history of making derogatory remarks and pointed out that he also made fun of Judd Apatow and Chris Gethard’s style of comedy, calling them “f–king gayer than ISIS” in another podcast episode.

After news of his firing broke, Gillis wrote that he understood NBC’s decision, tweeting: “I’m a comedian who was funny enough to get SNL. That can’t be taken away. Of course I wanted an opportunity to prove myself at SNL, but I understand it would be too much of a distraction. I respect the decision they made. I’m honestly grateful for the opportunity. I was always a mad tv guy anyway.”

The new “SNL” season kicks off Sept. 28 with host Woody Harrelson and musical guest Billie Eilish.