New Saturday Night Live cast member Shane Gillis' response to the controversy over his use of racist and homophobic slurs hasn't, it seems, remotely helped his situation.
Shortly after the NBC sketch show announced Gillis' hiring Thursday, examples of his use of racist and homophobic slurs spread online, including a video from September 2018 in which he uses an anti-Asian slur. He also used homophobic slurs in another instance, Variety reports. This controversy came on the same day SNL hired its first cast member of East Asian descent: Bowen Yang, who is also openly gay.
Amid the firestorm, Gillis released a statement defending himself as a "comedian who pushes boundaries" and takes "risks." While saying that "I sometimes miss," he didn't apologize and instead wrote that he would be "happy to apologize to anyone who's actually offended," seemingly questioning the motives of those criticizing him.
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"The contempt in 'actually' tells you what you need to know," writer Mark Harris tweeted. "Racism is famously boundary pushing because nobody has ever been racist before," comedian Siobhan Thompson sarcastically commented. Writer Priscilla Page agreed, tweeting, "making a bad joke and sitting around with your friend just being casually racist are 2 very different things," while The Washington Post's Gene Park similaly wrote, "Ok but just saying the slur isn't really comedy or pushing any boundaries." Comedian Patton Oswalt, while not mentioning Gillis' name, also made his feelings on this non-apology pretty clear.
SNL hasn't yet responded to the controversy surrounding Gillis' hiring. For now, he's set to be a part of the show's line-up when it returns on Sep. 28.
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