Key Takeaways
- Shane Gillis defended his recent SNL monologue on The Joe Rogan Experience, calling it a "solid C-minus" but insisting there was "no controversy" because he mostly mocked his own weight.
- Gillis said SNL producers "don’t approve" guest hosts' monologues beforehand, while his joke about women’s gym outfits drew criticism from Dan Levy, Ego Nwodim and subsequent host Inde Navarrette.
- The appearance marked Gillis’ third time hosting since SNL fired him in 2019 after recordings surfaced of him using racist and homophobic slurs.
Shane Gillis has broken his silence on his Saturday Night Live monologue from last month — and he doesn’t see what was so controversial about it.
On the Friday (November 13) episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, the comedian spoke about the backlash for the first time. Around the 1:25:00 mark of the video below, Gillis confirmed that SNL producers "don’t approve" monologues written by guest hosts.
"Fellas, I'm giving you a solid C-minus of a monologue but I promise there's no controversy. I'm calling myself fat for fucking 10 minutes. That's it," he said.
When producers asked for an update about the monologue, Gillis recalled telling them: "It's not great but I don't say anything bad."
Gillis' recent appearance on SNL was his third time on the long-running sketch comedy program since being fired in 2019. While joking about his weight, Gillis made a crack at women who "dress like whores" at the gym. The comedian also drew a comparison between his receding hairline and Adolf Hitler.
Among those who fired back were Dan Levy, former SNL player Ego Nwodim and Gillis' ex-girlfriend, Grace Brassel, who claimed in an Instagram reel that she was "stripped" of her autonomy during their relationship.
Actor Inde Navarrette took a swipe at Gillis in her own SNL monologue on October 31, joking that she regularly wears a "little whore outfit" for gym training in preparation to star in the X-Men reboot. Among those who came to Gillis’ defense were Dana Carvey and David Spade and Jimmy Carr.
The show fired Gillis in September 2019, days after naming him a cast member in Season 45, when podcast clips of him using racist and homophobic slurs resurfaced. The entertainer came back as host in February 2024, and returned the following March.
"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 a comedian and his impressive audition for SNL,” a rep for SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels said, per NBC News. "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."
