Lorne Michaels blames NBC for firing Shane Gillis from SNL

There are quite a few famous faces who appeared on Saturday Night Live for a limited number of episodes: Ben Stiller, Gilbert Gottfried, Damon Wayans…Whether they bailed, were let go or decided to try to tank the show mid-air, they all have that distinction of having at least made it to Studio 8H. But few – that is, just two – people were hired but never got the chance to enter the famed studio. One of these sorta-kinda SNL cast members is Shane Gillis, who was hired in 2019 but fired after racist and homophobic statements he made resurfaced. Now, Lorne Michaels is standing by Gillis, pinning the blame on his firing on the network.

Speaking with The Wall Street Journal, Lorne Michaels admitted that Shane Gillis was in the wrong but that it maybe shouldn’t have cost him his spot on SNL. “He said something stupid, but it got blown up into the end of the world. I was angry. I thought, You haven’t seen what we’re going to do, and what I’m going to try to bring out in him, because I thought he was the real thing.” He added, “That was very strong from the people in charge. And obviously I was not on that side, but I understood it.”

Despite what he says now, a spokesperson for Lorne Michaels said at the time of Shane Gillis’ firing, “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.” Even still, in the years since the hiring/firing debacle, Michaels has gone on to defend Shane Gillis, who even got a chance to host SNL a few years later.

Shane Gillis has rebounded even after his SNL whiplash, turning up on Pete Davidson’s Bupkis and delivering two comedy specials, including last year’s Beautiful Dogs on Netflix. He, too, was once rumored to be in Quentin Tarantino’s now-discarded The Movie Critic.

Do you think Shane Gillis deserved his temporary cancellation or was it an overreaction by NBC? Share your thoughts with us below.