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MAGA-Friendly ‘SNL’ Host Breaks Silence in Surprise Show

Shane Gillis discussed the controversy during an unscheduled opening set for Dave Chappelle.

The Saturday Night Live host who incited a barrage of backlash by declaring women “dress like w---res” is finally ready to talk about it, according to social media users who claimed to be present at Dave Chappelle’s Austin show on Monday.

Shane Gillis, 38, opened for Chappelle, Reddit and TikTok users revealed in several posts about the phone-free show, where one Redditor said he spent the first third of his set “discussing the SNL joke.”

The user wrote that Gillis “seemed visibly shaken and humbled by the backlash,” as he spoke. “I wouldn’t say he explicitly apologized (he did not ever say ‘I’m sorry’), but he was clear that he understood why people were mad at him,” they added. “If anything, I felt that he was trying to work through it on stage with us in real time.”

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Gillis drew the ire of celebrities and his fellow comedians following his Oct. 10 monologue.

“I haven’t been to the gym in so long I didn’t know women just dress like wh---s now? I’m sorry, there’s no other way to describe it,” he said from the SNL stage. “Have you seen it? I’ve seen it. The shorts. Have you seen the shorts? Those neon, they’re like artificial bait-colored. And the wrinkles go around the cheeks, and all combine at the butthole. And don’t look; you’re not allowed to look. For real, don’t look because they are filming. I’m in the background of like 10 TikToks right now.”

Schitt’s Creek star Dan Levy posted a video on Instagram calling out the joke—and SNL for airing it. “Women wearing short shorts to the gym does not make them whores. It makes the men calling them whores, misogynists. There’s a difference there,” he said.

Others joined the chorus, with SNL veterans Cecily Strong and Ego Nwodim mocking Gillis in their own Instagram posts. Twenty-three-year vet Kenan Thompson slammed Gillis for becoming a distraction from the rest of the show, telling Axios that comedians should “educate yourself on how things might impact people.”

And SNL U.K. called the comedian a “stupid f---ing c---” on air after the joke.

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Gillis, one of several “red-state” comedians who orbit Joe Rogan, occasionally tries to distance himself from the anti-“woke” comedy crowd.

Though Gillis attended Trump’s birthday cage match in June, he later told Rogan he avoided pictures of the MAGA elite on purpose, unlike Nate Bargatze, and that he did not vote for Trump in 2024. He was also the only comedian present at Trump’s UFC fight to condemn the vile slur hurled at Michelle Obama.

Some critics believe Gillis’ monologue on his third time hosting SNL was a re-initiation of sorts, as he also name-checked Rogan on stage before making the remarks that drew him blowback.

The Redditor claims the pendulum swung back the other way when Gillis opened for Chappelle. “He did do a bit about how people think he’s a Republican, but he’s definitely voting Democrat, and made a lot of jokes at Trump’s expense,” they wrote. “He said that people think he’s Republican primarily because he doesn’t have a problem being friends with Republicans.”

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Eboni Boykin-PattersonEntertainment Reporter

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