Comedian Shane Gillis' "Saturday Night Live" journey from firing to hosting, explained

Five years ago, comedian Shane Gillis was fired from "Saturday Night Live" before he even stepped on the esteemed stage at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The comedian's career first launched when he was kicked off the starting lineup of new cast members in 2019 for his resurfaced podcast clips that were deemed both racist and homophobic, using language that SNL called “offensive, hurtful and unacceptable.” Since this hiring and immediate firing, Gillis has created a successful comedy career with the Netflix comedy special "Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs" and a YouTube sketch comedy channel called "Gilly and Keeves" that has nearly a million subscribers and millions of views. But a lot of it was invented because it wasn’t like he was making any comments about me specifically.” September 16, 2019: SNL fires Gillis for "offensive" and "hurtful" language Five days after the comedian was hired, a spokesperson for long-time "SNL" executive producer Lorne Michaels said that they would not be going forward with Gillis during season 45. Gillis said that Michaels asked him about his work, Gillis said he had a podcast in which, “I say like gay and retard a lot.” According to Gillis, “They were like, ‘Ah, that’s fine, don’t worry about it.’” His career did not slow down post-"SNL" firing either — it only ramped up.