Gillis started performing comedy in 2012, and in 2016, along with fellow stand-up comedian Matt McCusker, began co-hosting Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast, the most subscribed-to podcast on Patreon as of 2024.[3][4] Gillis had a breakout year in 2019; the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal named him one of its "New Faces" in July, and in September he was announced as a newly-hired cast member on NBC's sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live (SNL). He subsequently became the subject of a controversy and was fired after five days at SNL due to backlash over a 2018 clip from his podcast in which derogatory language, such as Asian ethnic slurs, were used, sparking a discussion on context and intent when certain topics are used for comedic purposes.[5][6]
In 2020, Gillis launched the online sketch series Gilly & Keeves in collaboration with filmmaker John McKeever, and he released his first comedy special, Shane Gillis: Live in Austin, on YouTube in 2021.[7] In 2023, his second comedy special, Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs, was released on Netflix. As of 2024, Gillis has starred in the Netflix comedy series Tires, which he co-created with McKeever. The first season premiered in May 2024.
He quickly transferred out of West Point during his first year, and played a year of football at Elon University in North Carolina. He was later asked to leave Elon University, and then returned to his parents' house, where he lived while attending community college. Gillis ultimately graduated from West Chester University in Pennsylvania with a degree in history.[13][14] After graduating, he worked for a time as a Honda salesman, and later spent six months teaching English in Spain.[13]
Career
2012–2019: Early career
Gillis began performing comedy in 2012.[15] He regularly performed in Harrisburg[11] and Lancaster, Pennsylvania.[16] To further his career, he relocated to Philadelphia, living near University City with fellow comedian Matt McCusker. In 2015, he placed third at Helium Comedy Club's annual "Philly's Phunniest" tournament,[17] and he won the tournament the next year.[18] In 2016, Gillis began Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast with McCusker. In 2017, Gillis became a frequent guest on The Bonfire with Big Jay Oakerson and Dan Soder, increasing his popularity. From June 2018 until August 2019, he appeared as a co-host on a weekly show on Compound Media called A Fair One with Tommy Pope.[19][20]
In 2019, after relocating to New York to further pursue comedy, Comedy Central named Gillis an "Up Next" comedian as he performed at Comedy Central's Clusterfest.[21] That same year, Gillis was recognized as a "New Face" at the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal.[22][23] During an interview for All Things Considered at that festival, Gillis was interrupted by stand-up comedian Robert Kelly, who said, "You're very funny, dude ... I mean, I wanted to hate it."[24] The interviewer, Andrew Limbong, described Gillis's set at the festival, writing: "Shane Gillis gives off post-jock energy—like someone who used to play a sport in school, then had the self-awareness to realize he wasn't cut out for it and stopped—but he isn't bitter about it at all. His friendly demeanor distracts you, while he sneaks in just a whiff of social insight within a barrage of self-deprecating sex jokes."[25]
Later that day, however, several clips surfaced from a since-removed 2018 episode of Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast, in which Gillis and co-host Matt McCusker jokingly discussed Chinatown, Manhattan, in mock East Asian accents and used the word "chink", an ethnic slur for Chinese people. Gillis argued that although the jokes were regrettable, especially when taken out of context, the intent behind them had been misunderstood; in using the slur, specifically, he was imitating an imagined 1940s white landlord, not expressing a view of his own.[28][9][29][30] In other clips, Gillis and co-host Matt McCusker ranked comedians by race, gender and sexual orientation, which included the use of gay slurs.[29] Later that night, Gillis posted a tweet saying that "I'm a comedian who pushes boundaries" and that "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."[31] Four days later, a spokesperson for SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels announced that Gillis had been removed from the cast.[6]
Afterward, Gillis maintained that the clips had been misleadingly divorced from their context, and that he was misquoted in the majority of articles reporting the story. Gillis also expressed regret for his "corny" description of himself as "a comedian who pushes boundaries", noting he had "literally 5 minutes of being pressured to write anything", and stating that he officially retracted it.[32][33]
Five years after the incident, Michaels revealed that the decision to fire Gillis was not his, and it was forced on him by NBC executives.[34]
2020–present: Career expansion
In December 2020, Gillis and comedian John McKeever launched the web series Gilly and Keeves, featuring comedy sketches starring Gillis and McKeever such as "ISIS Toyota", "Uncle Daycare", and "Trump Speed Dating".[35] On September 7, 2021, Gillis released his first live comedy special, Shane Gillis: Live in Austin on YouTube. Comedy website The Laugh Button ranked Gillis's special in second place in their top 20 comedy specials of 2021.[36] Since 2021, Gillis has made a series of appearances on Joe Rogan's podcast The Joe Rogan Experience alongside comics Mark Normand and Ari Shaffir, known as the "Protect Our Parks" episodes.[37] Gillis released his second live comedy special, Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs on September 5, 2023, on Netflix.[38]
In 2023, Gillis had a recurring role on the Peacock series Bupkis, starring Pete Davidson. In 2024, Gillis hosted the February 24 episode of Saturday Night Live (season49, episode12), nearly four and a half years after his firing from the show in September 2019.[39] Gillis's hosting received mixed reviews.[40]
In February 2024, Gillis struck a deal with Netflix for a scripted workplace comedy as well as his second special with the streamer. Gillis will serve as an executive producer, a writer and co-creator of the show Tires based on his pilot on YouTube. The six-episode series premiered on May 23 on the service.[41]Tires was renewed for a second season on May 21, 2024.[42][43] In 2024, Gillis also appeared in the music video for Eminem's new single "Houdini."
In October 2024, during a comedy festival entitled Skankfest in Las Vegas, Gillis stated that he declined an offer to impersonate Donald Trump for the entire 50th season of SNL to attend "Coke Magic", one of the shows at the festival.[44][45]
Gillis appears in the upcoming movie Easy's Waltz, in a supporting role that was originally written for comedian Norm Macdonald, who died before the film began production.[46]
In February 2025, Gillis appeared in an advertisement for Bud Light titled "Big Men on Cul-De-Sac," which aired during Super Bowl LIX. He appeared in the advertisement with Peyton Manning and Post Malone. This ad was seen as an attempt by Anheuser-Busch to win back its traditionally masculine audience after the 2023 Bud Light boycott, although it received a mixed reception from ad critics.[47][48]
↑ Stevens, Matt (September 17, 2019). "Andrew Yang Knows You May Disagree With Him About Shane Gillis". The New York Times. p.C1. Retrieved September 18, 2019. Then, about an hour after the announcement, Mr. Yang tweeted again, suggesting that Mr. Gillis had taken him up on his offer to talk things out. 'Shane Gillis reached out,' Mr. Yang said. 'Looks like we will be sitting down together soon.'
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