Back in 2019, comedian Shane Gillis was hired by Saturday Night Live alongside Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman. The latter two are still cast members on the show today, but Gillis never made it to his first episode, as SNL head Lorne Michaels reversed the decision and fired Gillis after resurfaced clips from his comedy shows came to light. These included racial stereotypes and homophobic slurs, but Gillis argued they were taken out of context.
Regardless of whether the jokes were out of context or not, he was out of a job, although things worked out just fine for him as his comedy career grew to new heights. He returned to host an episode of the show in 2024, so it’s clear there wasn’t any bad blood between him and the show. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter ahead of SNL’s landmark 50th season, Michaels explained he thought people overreacted to the hiring.
“We had a bad time when I added Shane Gillis to the cast [in 2019]. He got beat up for things that he’d done years earlier [racist and homophobic jokes] and the overreaction to it was so stunning — and the velocity of it was 200 Asian companies were going to boycott the show. It became a scandal and I go, “No, no, he’s just starting and he’s really funny and you don’t know how we’re going to use him.”
And when he came back to the show last year [to host], we saw, “Oh right, he’s really talented, and he would’ve been really good for us.” Now, his life turned out well without
SNL
, but my point with it is everything became way too serious. It was like a mania. And the velocity of cancellation — and lots of people deserved to not be liked — it just became not quite the Reign of Terror, but it was like you’re judging everybody on every position they have on every issue as opposed to, “Are they any good at the thing they do?” I do think that period is winding down and, I believe, the people who do awful things will still be punished.”
The good news is the decision is now five years in the rear-view mirror and both parties are doing just fine. Gillis now has a Netflix show called Tires that was renewed for a second season in May 2024.
SNL Names Its First Hosts of Season 50
NBC has put a lot of attention into the 50th season of SNL, and a big part of that has been landing recognizable hosts and musical guests. The first slate has already been revealed, and things are shaping up quite nicely for a solid start to the season. The season’s debut on September 28 is hosted by Jean Smart with musical guest Jelly Roll. Following that, we have Nate Bargatze with Coldplay, Ariana Grande with Stevie Nicks, Michael Keaton with Billie Eilish, and John Mulaney with Chappell Roan.
This is just the first group of names announced, so there will likely be even more surprises in store later on. With the presidential election taking place during the season, viewers can expect to see a lot of political commentary as they have in the past, but they shouldn’t expect to see Tim Walz portrayed by Steve Martin.
Saturday Night Live
Season 50 kicks off September 28.