Shane Gillis is addressing his controversial Saturday Night Live monologue in which the comedian shamed women for their workout attire.
“Not to defend SNL — they don’t approve it,” Gillis, 38, said while appearing on the Friday, November 13, episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, revealing that SNL personnel did not pre-approve his remarks during the October 10 show. “I mean, they could shut it down.”
He then recalled what he said he told the show before he took the live stage.
“I’m giving you a solid C minus of a monologue, but I promise there’s no controversy,” Gillis said.
In October, Gillis came under fire after calling women who go to the gym to workout “whores” for how they dress.
“I haven’t been to the gym in so long, I didn’t know women just dress like whores now? Look, I’m sorry, there’s no other way to describe [it],” the comedian lamented at the time. “Have you seen it? I’ve seen it. You’ve seen the shorts? They’re those neon, like, artificial bait-colored [shorts], and the wrinkles go around the cheeks and all combine at the butthole. And don’t look! You’re not allowed to look.”
Gillis’ remarks sparked instant backlash online, with many Hollywood stars speaking out in opposition of the comedian’s remarks in the wake of the Jane Doe Cornell gang rape allegations.
“Women wearing short shorts to the gym does not make them whores,” Dan Levy said in an Instagram video shared on October 11. “It makes the men calling them whores misogynists. There’s a difference there.”
The Schitt’s Creek alum added that he’s “seen more men’s nipples at the gym than I’ve ever seen women showing their bodies off.”
“But I’m speechless that something like that can exist on live national television,” he continued. “And to be perfectly honest, more men need to be standing up in opposition to it because it’s complacency that has created the environment [in] which women are sexually assaulted, and it’s a conversation as opposed to a crime.”
He continued, “This is not a women’s issue. This is an everybody issue, because the more that men objectify women in the media, the more that other men see them as objects and treat them as objects. They are not objects. They are superior human beings to men, OK? And I’m sorry if this gets me in trouble with the internet, but f***.”
During his Friday conversation with UFC commentator-turned-podcast host Joe Rogan, Gillis admitted that his joke was ill-received as a result of the “times.”
“[It] obviously had a lot to do with the climate,” he said. “The first time I got fired, I kept social media. This time, I just deleted everything immediately.” (Gillis was fired from SNL in 2019 after just four days among racist and homophobic comments from his podcast that had resurfaced online. SNL noted at the time that they were unaware of his “offensive” remarks. Gillis also released a statement but did not apologize for his comments.)
