Shane Gillis opens ‘SNL’ hosting gig with several jokes about Down Syndrome — 5 years after his infamous firing
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Stand-up comedian Shane Gillis hosted “Saturday Night Live” five years after his infamous firing and didn’t shy away from making jokes on taboo topics like the canning — warning audience members “Don’t google that.”
The controversial funnyman — who was fired from the show before appearing on-air — spent a large portion of his monologue talking about his niece with Down Syndrome.
“My family and I, we actually opened a coffee shop in my hometown for people with Down Syndrome to work at and it’s going — Don’t clap!” Gillis said.
“It’s going exactly how you think it would go. It’s still well actually … Not because there’s a ton of people getting good service. Everyone’s getting apple juice. We don’t know how to fix that problem.”
The gig was the first time Gillis, 36, appeared on the show.
Sources told Page Six this week that Gillis had been working out his material in Big Apple comedy clubs in the days leading up to his hosting gig, and was confident in executing the Downs bits.
“He’s going all in,” an insider reported.
The “Beautiful Dogs” jokester was famously fired from SNL for using a racial slur in 2019, just five days after he was hired by the NBC institution.
The star was canned because a 2018 podcast episode surfaced in which he and other comics used a racial slur for Chinese people. They were impersonating old-fashioned, pre-war landlords when they used the phrase, but “SNL” boss Lorne Michaels still gave him the boot.
He made mention of the notorious incident, telling the audience that he “shouldn’t be up here.”
“Most of you probably have no idea who I am. I was actually fired from this show a while ago, but if you know, don’t look that up, please. Please don’t google that,” he said.
“I should be home. I should be a high school football coach. That’s what I feel like God molded me perfectly to be: a high school football coach-slash-ninth-grade sex education teacher,” Gillis said.
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