Shane Gillis

Shane Michael Gillis (born December 11, 1987) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, sketch comedy writer, and podcaster. He is co-host, along with fellow stand-up comedian Matt McCusker, of Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast, the most subscribed-to podcast on Patreon. In 2019, the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal named Gillis one of its "New Faces".

Gillis was announced as a new cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live in 2019, only to be fired from the show five days later due to backlash from clips of a 2018 episode of a podcast featuring jokes that contained ethnic slurs. In 2021, Gillis released his first comedy special, Shane Gillis: Live in Austin on YouTube. Gillis is also known for his collaborations with filmmaker John McKeever, on their online sketch series Gilly & Keeves. In September 2023, his second comedy special, Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs, was released on Netflix.

Shane Michael Gillis was born on December 11, 1987, in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, a town located just outside Harrisburg. While attending Trinity High School in nearby Camp Hill, he was on its football team as an offensive tackle. He graduated in 2006. He went to West Point but quit shortly into his first year. He subsequently attended and played a year of football at Elon University and eventually graduated from West Chester University. After graduating, he spent six months teaching English in Spain.

Early career (2012–2019)

Gillis began performing comedy in 2012. He regularly performed in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Lancaster, Pennsylvania. To further his career, he relocated to Philadelphia. In 2015, he placed third at Helium Comedy Club's annual "Philly's Phunniest" tournament, and he won the tournament the next year. Gillis has stated that his stand-up influences are Louis C.K., Norm Macdonald, Dave Chappelle, Patrice O'Neal, Bernie Mac, and Bill Burr.

In 2016, Gillis began Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast with Matt McCusker. In 2017, Gillis became a frequent guest on The Bonfire with Big Jay Oakerson and Dan Soder, increasing his popularity. He also began a weekly show on Compound Media called A Fair One with Tommy Pope.

In 2019, Comedy Central named Gillis an "Up Next" comedian as he performed at Comedy Central's Clusterfest. That same year, Gillis was recognized as a "New Face" at the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal. 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." The interviewer, Andrew Limbong, described Gillis' 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."

Saturday Night Live (2019)

Gillis's addition to Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a featured cast member was announced on September 12, 2019, along with Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman.

Later that day however, several clips of a 2018 episode of Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast, which have since been removed from YouTube, resurfaced, in which Gillis and co-host Matt McCusker made jokes in mock East Asian accents while discussing Chinatown and used the word "chink", an ethnic slur for Chinese people. In an attempt to defend the clip, Gillis insisted that while the jokes they made in the clip were regrettable, he feels the intent was misunderstood, as the scenario they were joking about was when quoting a hypothetical 1940s white landlord in Chinatown, and no malice or hate was intended. In other clips, Gillis and co-host Matt McCusker ranked comedians by race, gender and sexual orientation, which included the use of gay slurs. 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." Four days later, a spokesperson for Lorne Michaels, a co-creator of the show, announced that Gillis had been removed from the cast.

Afterwards, Gillis maintained that while the clips looked bad, they were taken out of context and he was misquoted in the majority of articles reporting the story. Gillis also stated that he immediately regretted using the "I'm a comedian who pushes boundaries" statement, blaming it on having "literally 5 minutes of being pressured to write anything", acknowledging the statement was "corny" and that he officially retracted the statement.

On February 3, 2024, it was announced that Gillis would host the February 24 show with musical guest 21 Savage, nearly four and a half years after his controversial firing from the show in 2019.

Continuation of stand-up, sketch and comedy special (2020–present)

In January 2020, Gillis was named "2019's Stand-Up Comedian of the Year" in Theinterrobang's Sixth Annual Comedy Awards.

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".

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.

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.

Gillis released his second live comedy special, Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs on September 5, 2023, on Netflix.

Gillis frequently appears on the Faction Talk show "The Bonfire" with Big Jay Oakerson and Robert Kelly (formerly Dan Soder) on Sirius XM, "The Doug Stanhope Podcast", the live stand-up judging showcase podcast "Kill Tony", and the podcasts "Legion of Skanks" and The "Real Ass Podcast" on the GaS Digital Network. He has also appeared in the comedy talk show The Adam Friedland Show. He was profiled in The New Yorker on September 19, 2022.

In 2023, Gillis had a recurring role on the Peacock series Bupkis, starring Pete Davidson.

In 2024, Gillis partnered with Bud Light for an upcoming sponsorship. Gillis has been a long time vocal fan of the brand, and has been known to promote them and drink their beer on many of his podcast appearances, with his fellow podcast guests/hosts often joking that he should be their spokesman.