Saturday Night Live comedian Shane Gillis apologises to ‘anyone actually offended’ following racist and homophobic comments
Gillis has claimed that he is ‘a comedian who pushes boundaries’
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Your support makes all the difference.A new cast member on Saturday Night Live has apologised to “anyone actually offended” after his history of racist and homophobic comments was unearthed.
Shane Gillis, who was announced yesterday as a new cast member on the long-running sketch comedy series, wrote on Twitter that he is “a comedian who pushes boundaries”.
“If you go through my 10 years of comedy, most of it bad, you’re going to find a lot of bad misses,” he continued. “I’m happy to apologise 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.”
Within hours of Gillis’s casting, clips from a podcast he hosted with fellow comic Matt McCusker went viral, with the pair heard engaging in conversation filled with racist slurs and homophobic comments. All episodes of the podcast have since been scrubbed from its YouTube page.
In one conversation, Gillis described ordering food at a Chinese restaurant, saying: “The translation between you and the waiter is such a f***ing hassle”, and “more annoying than any other minority playing music out of their phone. An Asian trying to learn English bothers me more than someone listening to Lil Uzi Vert while I’m trying to eat f***ing dinner.”
In another viral clip, Gillis and McCusker attempt to “rank” comedians by race and gender. “I think gay dudes are funnier than white chicks,” Gillis says. “White chicks are literally the bottom. [Comedian] Ali Wong is making it so Asian chicks are funnier than white chicks.”
Gillis also condemns white male comedians who talk about mental health. “Dude, those guys are f***ing gayer than ISIS… These white fa**ot comics, they’re like, ‘I’m just sad because life’s hard and it turns out that I’m gay’"
After McCusker suggests that it would “probably strike a chord” if “you’re a huge p***y too”, Gillis says: “It’s kind of like you and me listening to Joe Rogan and f***ing Jordan Peterson. You can relate to it, dude. Those dudes are f***ing sick-ass alphas.”
Yesterday, Gillis was announced as one of three new cast members for the forthcoming 45th season of Saturday Night Live, along with Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang, the latter the first Asian-American cast member in the show’s history, and its third gay male cast member overall.
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