Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: The people who watch SNL are offended by Shane Gillis.
Of course Shane is one of the most popular comedians in the world right now, not just for his standup but also his netflix show Tires and his podcast Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast alongside fellow comedian Matt McCusker.
But back in 2019, he was actually fired from Saturday Night Live just a week after being announced as a cast member over resurfaced comments from his podcast.
It turned out to be the best thing that’s ever happened to him, because Shane has blown up since then while SNL has remained painfully unfunny, but back in 2024 the show finally decided to welcome him back as host for the first time since the controversy – and as you can imagine, there were a lot of people in the show’s regular audience who weren’t happy about it.
Of course these are people who probably weren’t familiar with Shane’s standup beforehand, but his first appearance was so successful that the show invited him back again last year for the first show after SNL celebrated their 50th anniversary, and then had him on as guest host once again last night for the third time since they fired him.
I’ll be honest, I was a little disappointed in the sketches this time around. We’ve gotten some pretty good ones the last couple of times Shane has been on, but this time the highlight was when he accidentally dropped an F-bomb during a Dr. Seuss parody and immediately panicked:
It was Shane’s monologue, though, that had most of the SNL viewers once again clutching their pearls…and taking to Twitter to complain.
During the 6 minute monologue, Shane poked fun at his own weight by joking that he “looks like a lesbian” and saying that women dress like “whores” at the gym these days:
“I haven’t been to the gym in so long I didn’t know women just dress like whores now? Look, I’m sorry, there’s no other way to describe… have you seen it? I’ve seen it. The shorts. Have you seen the shorts? Those neon, they’re like artificial bait colored and the wrinkles go like around the cheeks and all combine at the butthole. And don’t look, you’re not allowed to look.
For real, don’t look, because they are filming. I’m in the background of like 10 TikToks right now.”
He also ended it by making fun of his hairline:
“I’ve balded directly into an Adolf Hitler haircut, and it’s not good, because I give a lot of speeches, and the front falls down a lot and there’s no way to adjust it without looking exactly like…
It’s the only way. I’m not going to do that, that’s gay. That’s it, you’re either gay or you’re Hitler. And isn’t that where we’re at as a country?”
I’ll be honest, it wasn’t my favorite set from Shane, not because it was offensive but because I just didn’t think it was as funny as some of his other stuff.
But others, meanwhile, are calling for him to be banned from the show after deeming the monologue “tasteless,” “misogynistic” and “cringe.”
@mistrustme1 I thought that was the worst SNL I’ve ever seen. I saw the first episode live. I found Shane’s monologue cringe and misogynistic.
I was only half paying attention.
— Tony Caputi (@slipknot440) October 11, 2026
Variety even wrote an entire article about how unfunny and problematic the monologue was:
We’ll have to see what the ratings were for last night’s episode, but chances are having Shane on the show did exactly what producer Lorne Michaels hoped it would do: Bring new viewers to SNL.
