Shane Gillis is an American comedian and actor, known for being hired to perform on the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live but fired before making even one appearance on the show due to inflammatory racial slurs and resultant controversy.[1] He has made frequent appearances on the Sirius XM radio show The Bonfire with Big Jay Oakerson and Dan Soder, and on Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast with Matt Mckusker.
Gillis is a native of Mechanicsburg,[2] Pennsylvania, a town just outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.[3] While attending Trinity High School (in nearby Camp Hill, Pennsylvania), he was on its football team as an offensive tackle.[4] He graduated in 2006.[4]
Gillis was recruited to play football at United States Military Academy, but he left before completing basic training. Shane obtained a history degree from Temple University in Philadelphia before a brief teaching stint in Spain.
Career
Gillis began performing comedy in 2012.[citation needed] He regularly performed in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.[4] To further his career, he relocated to Philadelphia. In 2015, he placed third at Helium Comedy Club's annual "Philly's Phunniest" tournament.[5] With the Good Good Comedy Theatre in Philadelphia, Gillis and Matt McCusker developed the stand-up format "Digital Graffiti", in which a group text appears on a screen behind the comedian and participants mock them; Gillis said, "Love or hate the comics on the showcase, it's really enjoyable to watch them get roasted. The show sells itself, especially among local comics. Every comic wants to see this show and watch their peers get their feelings hurt."[6]
In 2016, Gillis began Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast with Matt Mckusker. In 2017, Shane became a frequent guest on The Bonfire with Big Jay Oakerson and Dan Soder, increasing his popularity. Shane also began a weekly show on Compound Media called A Fair One with Tommy Pope.
In 2019, Comedy Central named Gillis an "Up Next" comedian as he performed at Comedy Central's Clusterfest.[7] Also that year, Gillis was recognized as a "New Face" at the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal.[8][9] During an interview for All Things Considered at that festival, Gillis was interrupted by stand-up comedian Robert Kelly, who said, "You're very funny, dude ... I mean, I wanted to hate it."[10] The interviewer, Andrew Limbong, described Gillis's set at the festival, writing: "Shane Gillis gives off post-jock energy — like someone who used to play a sport in school, then had the self-awareness to realize he wasn't cut out for it and stopped — but he isn't bitter about it at all. His friendly demeanor distracts you, while he sneaks in just a whiff of social insight within a barrage of self-deprecating sex jokes."[11]
Gillis's credits as director include Bad Deal (2019), a short film about a drug deal; it played at the Sidewalk Film Festival in Birmingham, Alabama.[12]
Gillis's addition to the cast of Saturday Night Live, a long-running NBC sketch-comedy show, as a featured player was announced on September 12, 2019, along with the new cast members Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman.[13] The choice of Gillis became controversial later that day when freelance comedy reporter Seth Simons posted clips, since removed from YouTube, of an episode of Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast from 2018 in which Gillis makes racist and mocking remarks about Chinese people.[14][3][15] In other clips, podcast hosts McCusker and Gillis rank comedians by race, gender, and sexual orientation and use homophobic slurs.[14] That night, Gillis posted a tweet saying that he was "comedian who pushes boundaries" and that "if you go through my 10 years of comedy, most of it bad, you're going to find a lot of bad misses. I'm happy to apologize to anyone who's actually offended by anything I've said."[16] On September 16, 2019, a spokesperson for Lorne Michaels announced that Gillis would not be joining the show in light of the controversy
Gillis is a native of Mechanicsburg,[2] Pennsylvania, a town just outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.[3] While attending Trinity High School (in nearby Camp Hill, Pennsylvania), he was on its football team as an offensive tackle.[4] He graduated in 2006.[4]
Gillis was recruited to play football at United States Military Academy, but he left before completing basic training. Shane obtained a history degree from Temple University in Philadelphia before a brief teaching stint in Spain.
Career
Gillis began performing comedy in 2012.[citation needed] He regularly performed in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.[4] To further his career, he relocated to Philadelphia. In 2015, he placed third at Helium Comedy Club's annual "Philly's Phunniest" tournament.[5] With the Good Good Comedy Theatre in Philadelphia, Gillis and Matt McCusker developed the stand-up format "Digital Graffiti", in which a group text appears on a screen behind the comedian and participants mock them; Gillis said, "Love or hate the comics on the showcase, it's really enjoyable to watch them get roasted. The show sells itself, especially among local comics. Every comic wants to see this show and watch their peers get their feelings hurt."[6]
In 2016, Gillis began Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast with Matt Mckusker. In 2017, Shane became a frequent guest on The Bonfire with Big Jay Oakerson and Dan Soder, increasing his popularity. Shane also began a weekly show on Compound Media called A Fair One with Tommy Pope.
In 2019, Comedy Central named Gillis an "Up Next" comedian as he performed at Comedy Central's Clusterfest.[7] Also that year, Gillis was recognized as a "New Face" at the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal.[8][9] During an interview for All Things Considered at that festival, Gillis was interrupted by stand-up comedian Robert Kelly, who said, "You're very funny, dude ... I mean, I wanted to hate it."[10] The interviewer, Andrew Limbong, described Gillis's set at the festival, writing: "Shane Gillis gives off post-jock energy — like someone who used to play a sport in school, then had the self-awareness to realize he wasn't cut out for it and stopped — but he isn't bitter about it at all. His friendly demeanor distracts you, while he sneaks in just a whiff of social insight within a barrage of self-deprecating sex jokes."[11]
Gillis's credits as director include Bad Deal (2019), a short film about a drug deal; it played at the Sidewalk Film Festival in Birmingham, Alabama.[12]
Gillis's addition to the cast of Saturday Night Live, a long-running NBC sketch-comedy show, as a featured player was announced on September 12, 2019, along with the new cast members Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman.[13] The choice of Gillis became controversial later that day when freelance comedy reporter Seth Simons posted clips, since removed from YouTube, of an episode of Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast from 2018 in which Gillis makes racist and mocking remarks about Chinese people.[14][3][15] In other clips, podcast hosts McCusker and Gillis rank comedians by race, gender, and sexual orientation and use homophobic slurs.[14] That night, Gillis posted a tweet saying that he was "comedian who pushes boundaries" and that "if you go through my 10 years of comedy, most of it bad, you're going to find a lot of bad misses. I'm happy to apologize to anyone who's actually offended by anything I've said."[16] On September 16, 2019, a spokesperson for Lorne Michaels announced that Gillis would not be joining the show in light of the controversy
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