Bowen Yang, Shane Gillis.Photo:Rodin Eckenroth/WireImage; Arturo Holmes/WireImage
Rodin Eckenroth/WireImage; Arturo Holmes/WireImage
Bowen Yangis setting the record straight.
On Feb. 26, a former background actor forSaturday Night Livecommented on theteaserfor the March 1 show—which Shane Gillis is hosting—and alleged that Yang was responsible forGillis' 2019 firing. At the time, Gillis was let go ahead of his first episode as a cast memberbecause ofhis use of racial slursin resurfaced footage.
“Can we acknowledge that Bowen Yang bitched him off the show- and he’s the bigger man to come host after being unfairly ditched bc of a whiny queen,” Michelle Best wrote in a comment on the joint post fromSNLand Gillis, 37. “SNLfired him as a hater. He’s not. He’s very kind and has smart humor and stands up to bullying. Good for him!”
The comment caught Yang’s attention, and he replied to it, denying Best’s claims. “Didn’t do any of this but I wrote the sketch you were a background actor in,” he wrote.
PEOPLE did not immediately hear back from a rep for Yang.
Bowen Yang replies to comment about Shane Gillis' firing.Shane Gillis/Instagram
Shane Gillis/Instagram
Yang, 34, overlapped with Gillis briefly atSNLsince they were both added to the cast in 2019 after theWickedactor had been in the writers' room for a year.
In a recentNew Yorkerprofile, Yang said that he felt “incidental to this big national story about cancel culture” when the old footage of Gillis making a racial slur and homophobic jokes circulated and prompted his firing.
Bowen also recalled that series creatorLorne Michaelstold him amid the controversy, “I don’t need you to be the poster child for racial harmony.”
At the time of Gillis' firing,anSNLspokesperson said in a statement on behalf of Michaels: “After talking with Shane Gillis, we have decided that he will not be joiningSNL,”
“We wantSNLto have a variety of voices and points of view within the show, and we hired Shane on the strength of his talent as comedian and his impressive audition forSNL,” the statement continued. “We were not aware of his prior remarks that have surfaced over the past few days. 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.”
Gillis returned toSNLfor the first timein February 2024, andmade a joke about his firing in his opening monologue.
“I was actually, I was 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 said. “I don’t know, I probably shouldn’t be up here, honestly.”
Shane Gillis during Promos in Studio 8H on Tuesday, February 20, 2024.Rosalind O’Connor/NBC via Getty
Rosalind O’Connor/NBC via Getty
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Saturday Night Liveairs Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC.
source: people.com
