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Lorne Michaels is putting the onus on NBC over the “Saturday Night Live” firing of Shane Gillis.
The “SNL” creator said he was “angry” over the decision in a new profile in the Wall Street Journal.
“He said something stupid, but it got blown up into the end of the world,” Michaels, 79, said in the interview, published Thursday. “I was angry. I thought, ‘You haven’t seen what we’re going to do, and what I’m going to try to bring out in him, because I thought he was the real thing.'”
Gillis was fired from “Saturday Night Live” in 2019 before he got the chance to appear on the show. Days after the announcement of his addition to the cast, Gillis faced backlash over a 2018 podcast clip where he used an anti-Asian slur, mocked stereotypical accents and said that “an Asian trying to learn English bothers me.”
USA TODAY has reached out to NBC for comment.
A show spokesperson said at the time they “were not aware of his prior remarks that have surfaced over the past few days.” The spokesperson added: “The language he used is offensive, hurtful and unacceptable. We are sorry that we did not see these clips earlier, and that our vetting process was not up to our standard.”
But Michaels now says the move was NBC’s choice: “That was very strong from the people in charge. And obviously I was not on that side, but I understood it.”
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In a September interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Michaels added amid the scandal “200 Asian companies were going to boycott the show.”
Gillis apologized after the video resurfaced, and said at the time he is a “comedian who pushes boundaries” and that he would be “happy to apologize to anyone who’s actually offended by anything I’ve said.”
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“If you go through my 10 years of comedy, most of it bad, you’re going to find a lot of bad misses,” he continued. “My intention is never to hurt anyone but I am trying to be the best comedian I can be and sometimes that requires risks.”
The sketch show brought Gillis back to host in February, almost five years later, to the mixed reaction of viewers.
“Most of you probably have no idea who I am,” Gillis said in his monologue. “I was actually fired from this show a while ago, but don’t look that up, please. If you don’t know who I am, please, don’t Google that. It’s fine. Don’t even worry about it.”
He added, “I probably shouldn’t be up here, honestly.”
