New “Saturday Night Live” cast member Shane Gillis issued a statement in response to criticism over bigoted comments he made as part of his podcast.
Racial slurs against people of Chinese descent in a September 2018 episode of his show with Matt McCusker, “Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast, resurfaced — in which Gillis said “Chinatown’s f—ing nuts” he says at one point in the conversation, which has since been deleted, followed by “let the f—-ing ch–ks live there.” And in another episode, Gillis and McCusker rank the talent of other comedians based on ethnicity and gender and use a homophobic slur.
After it was announced that Gillis was joining “SNL” next season, he posted a statement on Twitter, saying: “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 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.”
Gillis is among three new “SNL” cast members set to join the show this year, including Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang. Yang, who is a child of Chinese immigrants, is the show’s only Asian American series regular.
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