Shane Gillis Bombs Third 'SNL' Monologue Since 2019 Firing

Shane Gillis returned to host "Saturday Night Live" for the third time since his 2019 firing — and bombed his opening monologue again, closing a short, meandering set with the line: "You're either gay or you're Hitler, and isn't that where we're at as a country?"

The 38-year-old comedian, dressed in a matching black T-shirt and pants, opened with material about needing to lose weight and being miserable while hiking, before turning to his attempts to seem unthreatening to women.

"I tried to go to a public gym. Going to the public gym as a fat guy, especially in New York, is a nightmare, dude," Gillis said. "It's just the hottest gay guys you've ever seen. They're jacked and they look at me, like, 'Yeah, right.' 'I know, dude.'"

How did the studio audience react?

Not well. When Gillis joked that he hadn't been to a gym in so long that he didn't know "women just dress like whores now," the in-studio audience responded with groans. Gillis doubled down, describing neon workout shorts in graphic detail and adding: "Don't look! You're not allowed to look. For real, don't look, because they are filming. I'm in the background of ten TikToks right now."

He also riffed on his "two big, fat-bitch sisters," who he said heckled him with "the meanest things," including calling him "bitch hips."

The monologue's most infamous moment arrived when Gillis addressed his receding hairline. "I've balded directly into an Adolf Hitler haircut," he joked. "And it's not good. Because I give a lot of speeches and the front falls down a lot, and there's no way to adjust it without looking exactly like [Hitler]."

He continued: "It's the only way. I'm not going to [brush it to the side], that's gay. That's it: You're either gay or you're Hitler, and isn't that where we're at as a country?"

Few laughs followed. The monologue then abruptly ended.

Why can't Gillis crack the 'SNL' monologue?

Gillis has shown considerable comedy chops elsewhere — in his stand-up specials and hosting the ESPYs — but the "SNL" monologue format remains elusive for him. He bombed his monologue during his first hosting stint in 2024, later blaming the Gen Z studio crowd for not getting his Civil War jokes. Since then, he has impressed in popular sketches such as "CouplaBeers."

His history with the show is unusually rocky. In September 2019, NBC announced Gillis as one of "SNL's" newest cast members, alongside Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang. The network fired him five days later, after clips resurfaced from his podcast in which he mocked Asians and used anti-gay slurs — a decision that looked especially bad given that Yang had just made history as the show's first cast member of full Asian descent and its third openly gay male cast member ever.

What has Gillis done since the firing?

Plenty. Without "SNL," Gillis built a popular podcast, released two stand-up specials, created and starred in the Netflix series "Tires" and landed a role in the upcoming biopic "Madden."

"SNL" creator Lorne Michaels later admitted he fired Gillis against his own wishes under pressure from NBC brass. "That was very strong from the people in charge. And obviously I was not on that side, but I understood it," Michaels told The Wall Street Journal.

Michaels has since appeared intent on making good with the comedian. He offered Gillis the role of Donald Trump for "SNL's" 50th season — which Gillis turned down — and has allowed him to host the show three times.

Whether a fourth hosting gig follows, Gillis's record now includes one fired-after-five-days tenure and two failed monologues, offset only by the sketches that have worked — a split that will shape how NBC weighs his next invitation.