Saturday Night Live is officially cutting ties with Shane Gillis.
Gillis was one of three new cast members announced last week for the long-running NBC sketch comedy show’s upcoming 45th season. But shortly thereafter, clips began circulating from Gillis’ podcasts and other media in which he repeatedly used racist, homophobic, and misogynistic language.
“Damn, Chinatown is fucking nuts,” Gillis says in the clip, referring to the ability of Chinese immigrants to build up their sprawling enclaves in the blink of an eye and without apparent opposition from the locals. “Let the fucking Chinks live there.”
In a widely-shared clip from “Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast,” Gillis and co-host Matt McClusker are discussing New York’s Chinatown when Gillis says, “Chinatown’s fucking nuts. Let the fucking chinks live there.” Gillis addresses Chinese restaurants by joking, “The translation between you and the waiter is such a fucking hassle, I’m pointing at it.”
In a separate podcast, “Ep 144 – A.I. is Racist,” Gillis and McCusker make fun of Asian accents about 22 minutes and 20 seconds in, referring to the video game “Clash of Clans” as “Crash of Crans” in a mock Chinese accent.
A little more than 21 minutes into “Ep 146 – Live from Shane’s Parent’s Basement,” while talking about the Battle of Gettysburg, Gillis refers to soldiers yelling as “so gay.” About 29 minutes into the podcast, Gillis uses the word “retard,” and “faggot,” and shortly afterward he and McCusker joke about “hot Southern boys” being raped during the Civil War, comparing it to “having gay sex in jail.”
Additional episodes of Gillis’ podcast finds the comedian having “a long history of denigrating women, Muslims and the LGBT community, among other groups.” In one episode about the Battle of Gettysburg, Gillis refers to screaming soldiers as “so gay” and uses the words “retard” and “faggot.” One joke finds Gillis and his co-host comparing “hot Southern boys” being raped in the Civil War to “having gay sex in jail.”
Gillis, in describing women who disguised themselves as men to fight in the war, refers to them as “flat chested fucking bitch.” He issued a statement last Thursday addressing the situation, writing in part, “My intention is never to hurt anyone but I am trying to be the best comedian I can be and sometimes that requires risks.”
SNL fires Shane Gillis: “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.”
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