Shane Gillis fired by Saturday Night Live, shortly after hiring
In a statement today, the NBC series and executive producer Lorne Michaels confirmed the news, and also shared the following message as they worked to explain the decision alongside the hiring process:
“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.”
For some other news when it comes to SNL in video form, watch the latest on the subject of Gillis’ dismissal below. Once you do that, subscribe to CarterMatt on YouTube and then also view our official series playlist for some more analysis.
What does Saturday Night Live now need to do moving forward? Certainly, assessing the vetting process is a big part of it. They need to take a look at what worked/didn’t work through some of this process, and then try to course-correct to find some better ways to go about some of the decisions that they made here. It’s probably harder to vet comedians now in 2019 than it was pre-social media, but in this era full of podcasts, you need to have a team at the ready to look into this stuff. After all, the internet all but certainly well!
Meanwhile, Gillis himself posted the following statement on the matter via his Twitter:
“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.”
Will Gillis’ departure mean that Saturday Night Live hires someone else? That remains to be seen, but you can view some of the other hires right now over here.
In getting back to the original question, Gillis is only the second SNL cast member hired to never appear in a single show — the second in Emily Prager at least made it into dress rehearsal.
What do you think about SNL deciding to cut ties from Shane Gillis?
Be sure to share in the comments, and stick around for some other news. (Photo: NBC.)