Many are not thrilled with Shane Gillis after he made an unsavory joke about Caitlin Clark at the 2025 ESPY Awards.
“Caitlin Clark and I have a lot in common,” Gillis, 37, told the crowd at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Wednesday, July 16. “We’re both whites from the Midwest who have nailed a bunch of threes.”
While Gillis’ first joke earned a round of laughs from the audience, the comedian doubled down in his follow-up bit.
“When Caitlin Clark retires from the WNBA, she’s going to work at a Waffle House so she can continue doing what she loves most: fist-fighting Black women,” he said.
Gillis got a couple of chuckles at the venue, but viewers from home took to social media to express their discontent.
“Caitlin Clark got the ESPY for Best WNBA Player,” one user wrote via X. “Shane Gillis can’t ruin that with his stupid jokes.”
Another fan wrote, “That is horrible! Not funny! And Caitlin has done nothing to deserve that. She only speaks well of everyone!”
Clark, 23, has not publicly reacted to Gillis’ joke.
The Indiana Fever player wasn’t the only athlete to get grilled by Gillis. Gillis also poked fun at Simone Biles, Megan Rapinoe and Aaron Rodgers.
“Aaron Rodgers did not take the vaccine because he thought it would be bad for him, and then he joined the New York Jets,” Gillis quipped. “Maybe he wasn’t right about everything.”
One of Gillis’ biggest digs of the night was at the expense of Bill Belichick and Jordon Hudson. After telling a joke about Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter’s gambling scandal, Gillis took a shot at the couple and their 48-year age gap.
“Shohei is a once in a generation talent. No one has been able to do what he does at so many positions: pitcher, hitter and bookie. A bookie is what Bill Belichick reads to his girlfriend before bed time,” he quipped. “They do, they read The Very Horny Caterpillar, The Little Engine That Could But Needed a Pill First and, of course, the classic Goodnight Boobs.”
Gillis explained that he wasn’t “trashing” Belichick.
“First off, he’s 73 years old and he’s dating a hot 24-year-old and people are criticizing him. What happened to this country?” he said. “We used to be a great country. He won six Super Bowls. He’s dating a hot 24-year-old. Maybe if you guys won six Super Bowls you wouldn’t be sitting next to a fat ugly dog wife.”
After getting a mix of laughs and groans during his monologue, Gillis was aware that some of his jokes were not landing with the audience.
“Well, I can see a lot of you do not like me, and that’s OK,” he teased. “That’s it for me. That went about as well as we all thought it was going to go.”
