United Talent Agency
Shane Gillis has been removed from the cast of the upcoming 45th season of Saturday Night Live, the show confirmed this afternoon.
"After talking with Shane Gillis, we have decided that he will not be joining SNL," a spokesperson for Lorne Michaels wrote in a press statement. "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 that 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."
Last week, footage surfaced of Gillis extensively mocking Chinese people and "white faggot comics." Though he won't be joining SNL this year, the show will see new additions with Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman joining the cast. In a statement posted to his Twitter, Gillis wrote how he was "always a MADtv guy, anyway."