‘SNL’ Alum Bill Hader Breaks Silence About Shane Gillis Firing

The Shane Gillis controversy has garnered all of the attention when it comes to Saturday Night Live. The show ended up firing Gillis after previous recordings of him making racial and homophobic slurs wound up coming back to haunt him. The decision occurred less than a week after the audio first resurfaced.

At Sunday’s Emmy Awards, SNL cast member Bill Hader was asked about his thoughts on the whole situation. Gillis actually never appeared on the show having just been hired the Thursday before he was cut loose.

Hader didn’t want to get into the subject, saying, ‘I have no thoughts on that.” He couldn’t resist, though, as another question prompted him to go on.

“I feel like you shouldn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Especially in comedy, you do stuff six or seven years ago that wouldn’t be okay now for good reason so I only speak for myself but, like anybody, you have to grow.”

Hader, who won the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for his role in Barry, said he has never been “interested in upsetting anybody,” as Gillis’ remarks clearly did in the past.

Gillis’ comments targeted Chinese people and Chinese restaraunts while his homophobic rant centered on Judd Apatow and a handful of his peers.

After the audio was discovered on a podcast, Gillis attempted to save face with an apology.

“I’m a comedian who pushes boundaries. I sometimes miss,” Gillis posted on Twitter. “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 apologize 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.”

The show didn’t take his apology too serious as they let him go shortly after. The company shared that they did speak with Gillis afterwards and decided “that he will not be joining SNL.“

“We were not aware of his prior remarks that have surfaced over the past few days,” a show spokesman said to The Hollywood Reporter. “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.”