Shane Gillis has never had an easy relationship with Studio 8H, and this weekend didn't change that. On Saturday, Oct. 10, the comedian hosted Saturday Night Live for the third time, with Rosalía as the musical guest. By Sunday morning, one joke from his seven-minute stand-up monologue was all anyone could talk about.
https://twitter.com/nbcsnl/status/2109130481195434198
The Gym Bit That Started It
Gillis opened with stories about trying to lose weight: hiking, working out at his "friend Joe Rogan"'s gym, and Theo Von telling him in the sauna that he "looks like a gas station egg," as NBC Insider recapped. Then he got to the public gym.
"Also, I haven't been to the gym in so long. I didn't know women just dressed like whores now," he said, according to TODAY. "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?" He went on to describe "neon, artificial-vape colored" shorts and told the men in the crowd not to look, because "they are filming."
NBC News reported that the line drew few laughs in the studio. Gillis also took heat for calling his older siblings his "two big fat b---- sisters," per TODAY, and for a closer about his hairline that Variety quoted: "I've balded directly into an Adolf Hitler haircut... You're either gay or you're Hitler, and isn't that where we're at as a country?" Variety wrote that "there were few laughs, and then it abruptly ended."
The Backlash
The reaction online was fast. NBC News said hundreds of people posted negative reactions across TikTok, Instagram, X and Threads. BuzzFeed editorial director Spencer Althouse called the monologue "very awkward" on X, TODAY reported.
The biggest name to weigh in was Schitt's Creek creator Dan Levy. He didn't name Gillis, but in an Instagram story on Oct. 11 he said, "Women wearing short shorts to the gym does not make them whores. It makes the men calling them whores misogynists. There's a difference there," USA TODAY reported. Levy added that he was "speechless that something like that can exist on live, national television" and that "more men need to be standing up in opposition."
The Independent noted that commentators found the timing especially tone-deaf, given the national conversation around the Cornell case that SNL had covered on Weekend Update the week before.
The Defense, and the History
Not everyone was turned off. SNL's own X post of the monologue has more than 6.5 million views and about 32,000 likes. Even Variety, which said Gillis "bombs" his monologues, credited him with "considerable comedy chops" in his stand-up specials and his ESPYs hosting gig, plus hit sketches like "CouplaBeers."
The history matters here too. SNL hired Gillis in 2019 and fired him days later after old podcast clips with racist and homophobic jokes resurfaced. Lorne Michaels later told The Wall Street Journal the decision came from NBC brass: "That was very strong from the people in charge. And obviously I was not on that side, but I understood it." Gillis has hosted every season since 2024.
As for Gillis himself, his only apology on Saturday was for an accidental uncensored F-bomb during a Dr. Seuss sketch. "And sorry about earlier," he said at the goodnights. NBC News reported that some viewers pointed out he apologized for the swear but not for the monologue.
Love him or hate him, Shane Gillis keeps getting invited back to Studio 8H, and he keeps getting people talking.
