Shane Gillis finally responds to backlash over controversial Saturday Night Live monologue

Comedian Shane Gillis has spoken out following his SNL monologue which saw him accused of objectifying women.

The 38-year-old hosted the hugely popular comedy show in the US back in October, despite having previously been fired in 2019 due to past racial and homophobic comments.

However, his opening monologue is unlikely to see him invited back any time soon, as he launched into a bizarre rant about the clothes that women wear at the gym.

He said: “I haven’t been to the gym in so long, I didn’t know women just dress like whores now?

“Look, I’m sorry, there’s no other way to describe [it]. Have you seen it? I’ve seen it. The shorts. Have you seen the shorts? Those neon, they’re like artificial bait-coloured. And the wrinkles go around the cheeks and all combined at the butthole. And don’t look, you’re not allowed to look. For real, don’t look because they are filming. I’m in the background of like 10 TikToks right now.”

Gillis has defended SNL but offered no apology for his routine (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

With many of the online audience left in shock by his comedic admission, Gillis has since spoken out on Joe Rogan's podcast to suggest that his opening didn't include 'anything bad'.

“The funniest part was, I was going in going— they were like, ‘What’s going on with the monologue?’ And I was like, ‘It’s not great, but I don’t say anything bad'. The whole time, I was like, ‘Fellas, I’m giving you a solid C minus of a monologue, but I promise there’s no controversy. I’m calling myself fat for f*****g 10 minutes. That’s it.'"

He also denied that SNL had pre-approved the monologue, after he also performed the same bit at a show around a week before last month's appearance on the long-running sketch comedy series.

Gillis said: "Not to defend SNL, they don’t approve it. I mean, they could shut it down.

“They could, but you don’t write your set and give it to them,” he explained. “Unless you’re not a comedian. I’m sure non-comics, they write the set for them. They have writers that write the monologue for them.”

Dan Levy was left 'speechless' by Gillis' monologue (Monica Schipper/Getty Images)

He concluded by clarifying that he doesn't truly 'have a problem' with the way that some women might choose to dress at the gym, and suggested that the backlash 'obviously had a lot to do with the climate' at the time.

Some of the significant fallout that Gillis has faced was from fellow former host Dan Levy, with the Schitt's Creek actor posting an Instagram reel the day after the speech to suggest he was left 'speechless that something like that can exist on live national television'.

He added: “Women wearing short shorts to the gym does not make them whores. It makes the men calling them whores, misogynists. There’s a difference there. By the way, I’ve seen more men’s nipples in the gym than I’ve ever seen women showing their bodies off.”

The 43-year-old continued: “Because it’s complacency that has created the environment in which women are sexually assaulted and it’s a ‘conversation’ as opposed to a crime. Men need to be defending women more. This is not a women’s issue. This is an everybody issue.

"Because the more that men objectify women in the media, the more that other men see them as objects and treat them as objects. They are not objects. They are superior human beings to men, OK?”