Lorne Michaels Was Stunned Shane Gillis’ Saturday Night Live Hiring Sparked ‘Overreaction’ as Controversial Remarks Resurfaced

Lorne Michaels has an interesting perspective when he looks back at the backlash to Saturday Night Live casting Shane Gillis before firing him days later.

The SNL creator, 79, described the period between Gillis being cast in 2019 and his firing after videos surfaced of him making racial slurs as a “bad time” in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

“He got beat up for things that he’d done years earlier and the overreaction to it was so stunning — and the velocity of it was 200 Asian companies were going to boycott the show,” Michaels, 79, said. “It became a scandal and I go, ‘No, no, he’s just starting and he’s really funny and you don’t know how we’re going to use him.'”

Michaels said that Gillis, 36, “turned out well without SNL,” but he still thinks that “everything became way too serious” amidst his resurfaced videos.

“It was like a mania. And the velocity of cancellation — and lots of people deserved to not be liked — it just became not quite the Reign of Terror, but it was like you’re judging everybody on every position they have on every issue as opposed to, ‘Are they any good at the thing they do?'”

The comedian said he “respected” the show’s decision in his own statement on X (formerly Twitter), as he wrote, “Of course I wanted an opportunity to prove myself at SNL, but I understand it would be too much of a distraction. I respect the decision they made. I’m honestly grateful for the opportunity. I was always a mad tv guy anyway.”

Saturday Night Live season 50 premieres Saturday, Sept. 28 at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC.