ICYMI, Leslie Jones is leaving Saturday Night Live [1], but the sketch comedy show is officially adding two new cast members for its 45th season, including the show's first Asian-American cast member: comedian and actor Bowen Yang [2] and celebrity impression savant Chloe Fineman. Stand-up comic Shane Gillis, who was originally hired along with Yang and Fineman, has been fired [3] after racist and homophobic remarks he made on his podcast were resurfaced online. Keep scrolling to learn more about Yang and Fineman, and check out SNL's season premiere hosted by Woody Harrelson and featuring performances by Billie Eilish [4] on Sept. 28.
Bowen Yang
Most well-known for his roles in shows such as Broad City and High Maintenance, Yang joined the writing staff for SNL [5] in September 2018, according to Forbes. He also appeared on the show as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un [6] in a sketch in March 2019 and currently hosts the Las Culturistas podcast [7].
Chloe Fineman
Chloe Fineman [8] is a comedian and actress based in Los Angeles most well-known for her characters and impressions (see: "Hippy Aunt"). She has guest-starred on several shows, including Search Party, Jane the Virgin [9], Grown-ish [10], and Hulu's High Fidelity.
Shane Gillis
Shane Gillis [11] is a comedian currently based out of New York who was named Philly's Funniest Comedian at the Helium Comedy Club in 2016, and was recognised in Comedy Central's Up Next showcase in 2019. He also has a history of being openly racist and homophobic [12]. After the announcement that he'd be joining the SNL cast on Sept. 12, freelance writer and comedy reporter Seth Simons surfaced a clip from Gillis's podcast Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast [13] on Twitter, which shows Gillis and co-host Matt McCusker making a number of racist comments about Chinese people and Chinatown, as well as mocking Chinese accents.
Gillis has since scrubbed multiple videos from his podcast channel on YouTube, but a remaining video [14] includes him and McCusker ranking comedians by race ("White chicks are literally the bottom . . . Ali Wong is making it so Asian chicks are funnier than white chicks") as well as calling comedians like Chris Gethard who use a confessional style of comedy "white f*ggot comics," and "f*cking gayer than ISIS."
Gillis issued a statement [15] on his Twitter page, writing, "I'm a comedian who pushes boundaries. I sometimes miss. 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 apologise to anyone who's actually offended by anything I've said. My intention is never to hurt anyone but I am trying to be the best comedian I can be and sometimes that requires risks."
On Sept. 16, Saturday Night Live [16] announced that Gillis had been fired [17] over the comments.
"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 comedian and his impressive audition for SNL," a show spokesperson said on behalf of executive producer Lorne Michaels. "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."
Gillis released his own statement on Twitter [18], saying he respected the decision and that he "was always a Mad TV guy, anyway." Mad TV aired its last episode in 2009, so it looks like Shane is just an unemployed guy now.