Days after he was announced as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, Shane Gillis has been removed. Gillis was heard on various podcasts making racist and homophobic statements.
Gillis, Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang were named to the SNL cast Sept. 12. Gillis was recognized as a New Face at the 2019 Just for Laughs Festival.
The creator and executive producer of SNL is Lorne Michaels. An SNL spokesperson on behalf of Michaels shared a statement.
“After talking with Shane Gillis, we have decided that he will not be joining SNL,” it reads. “We want SNL to have a variety of voices and points of view within the show, and we hired Shane on the strength of his talent as a comedian and his impressive audition for SNL. We were not aware of his prior remarks that have surfaced over the past few days. The language he used is offensive, hurtful and unacceptable. We are sorry that we did not see these clips earlier, and that our vetting process was not up to our standard.”
Season 45 of Saturday Night Live premieres on NBC Sept. 28 with host Woody Harrelson and musical guest Billie Eilish.
