Racist jokes end Shane Gillis’s SNL gig

Saturday Night Live has fired Shane Gillis for making racist jokes, just four days after he was revealed as a new cast member.

Shane Gillis has lost his role at Saturday Night Live Picture: AP

Saturday Night Live has sacked comedian Shane Gillis for making racist jokes about Chinese ­people, the US late-night comedy show said on Monday, just four days after he was revealed as a new cast member.

Videos of Gillis using the derogatory term “chinks” and making homophobic comments triggered a rapid backlash and were widely shared following the announcement last Thursday that he had been signed as a new cast member.

The language used by Gillis was “offensive, hurtful and unacceptable”, a spokesperson for producer Lorne Michaels said in a statement.

“We were not aware of his prior remarks that have surfaced over the past few days,” it said, adding: “We are sorry that we did not see these clips earlier, and that our vetting process was not up to our standard.”

Gillis said he understood the decision, writing in a statement on Twitter that he “would be too much of a distraction” on the show because of the controversy.

“I’m a comedian who was funny enough to get SNL. That can’t be taken away,” he said.

The offensive comments were made during the recording of Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast. The videos have been removed from the podcast’s YouTube channel but continue to circulate on social media. One clip had been viewed more than four million times on Monday.

In a conversation, Gillis and co-host Matt McCusker discuss the origins of the Chinatown neighbourhood. Gillis repeatedly mispronounces noodles as “nooders” and performs a mocking imitation of a Chinese waitress unable to understand his order. In another conversation, Gillis describes two prominent comedians as “faggot comics”.

Gillis, seen as a rising star on the US stand-up comedy circuit, said in an earlier statement that he was “happy to apologise to anyone who’s actually offended” but that he was a “comedian who pushes boundaries”. The clips provoked fury on social media, with many noting that Gillis had been hired at the same time as Bowen Yang, the show’s first full-time Asian-American cast member who is of Chinese heritage and gay.

AFP