Shane Gillis Addresses ‘SNL’ Monologue After He Promised Show “No Controversy”

One month later, Shane Gillis is addressing the fallout from his Saturday Night Live opening monologue.

After sparking controversy for accusing women of “dressing like whores” at the gym, the comedian explained why the NBC sketch comedy show didn’t cut the joke from his monologue for the Oct. 10 episode he hosted.

“Not to defend SNL, they don’t approve it. I mean, they could shut it down,” he explained on The Joe Rogan Experience. “They could, but you don’t write your set and give it to them. Unless you’re not a comedian. I’m sure non-comics, they write the set for them. They have writers that write the monologue for them.

Gillis continued, “The funniest part was, they were like, ‘What’s going on with the monologue?’ And I was like, ‘It’s not great but I don’t say anything bad.’ The whole time, I was like, ‘Fellas, I’m giving you a solid C minus of a monologue but I promise there’s no controversy. I’m calling myself fat for fucking 10 minutes. That’s it.'”

Having been fired from the cast before his first episode in 2019, Gillis noted that the “hard one” about the controversy this time is not knowing what people are saying on social media.

“The first time I got fired, I kept social media and in my head I was like, ‘That guy talked shit,'” he said. “This one I just deleted everything immediately. So, I don’t really know.”

Gillis joked that he’s “thinking about bumping” the comedians who criticized him from their tour dates, “but I’m not going to do that. That was my agent joking around suggesting that, and I was like, ‘I don’t think anyone touring talks shit. So what am I going to take?'”

Since the ill-received SNL episode, several comedians and actors have called out Gillis, including Kathy Griffin, Dan Levy and Inde Navarrette on the following week’s episode, as well as SNL alum Ego Nwodim and SNL UK‘s Ania Magliano on the British counterpart’s “Weekend Update.”

Gillis’ latest hosting gig on SNL comes after he hosted in 2024 and 2025, following his removal from the NBC sketch comedy‘s featured cast days after he was announced in 2019. The decision came in response to resurfaced videos of Gillis mocking Asian accents, in addition to using ethnic and gay slurs.