Feb. 4 (UPI) — Stand-up comedian Shane Gillis is set to guest host Saturday Night Live on Feb. 24.
Bud Light also announced last week a new partnership with Gillis, who has headlined the hit Netflix special, Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs.
He had been hired as a cast member for Season 45 of the sketch comedy show, then was fired in late 2019 before the season began as videos of him making jokes about race and sexuality were circulated online.
“After talking with Shane Gillis, we have decided that he will not be joining SNL,” a show representative said in a statement.
“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. 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.”
Gillis responded with his own statement on Twitter, now X.
“I’m a comedian who was funny enough to get SNL. That can’t be taken away,” Gillis said.
“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,” he added. “If you go through my 10 years of comedy, most of it bad, you’re going to find a lot of bad misses. I’m happy to apologize to anyone who’s actually offended by anything I’ve said.”
Rapper 21 Savage, whose album American Dream has topped the Billboard 200 chart for the past two weeks, will be the musical guest on the Feb. 24 episode of SNL.