Earlier this week, Saturday Night Live made the celebrated, inclusive decision to add the first Asian-American full-time cast member, but after fans dug into Shane Gillis’ past, they uncovered footage of him using anti-Asian slurs. On a 2018 episode of Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast, Gillis can be heard saying, “Chinatown's fucking nuts. Let the fucking c***ks live there." In another episode, he takes on presidential hopeful Andrew Yang, calling him a “commie Jew c***k."
Gillis has posted an apology and explanation of the events on his social media accounts, to which Yang has since responded. “Shane - I prefer comedy that makes people think and doesn’t take cheap shots. But I’m happy to sit down and talk with you if you’d like,” Yang said initially. He continued in another tweet, “For the record, I do not think he should lose his job. We would benefit from being more forgiving rather than punitive. We are all human.” Gillis has yet to reply to Yang.
Andrew Yang is coming off another decent performance during this week’s Democratic Primary Debate. In an effort to boost his polling numbers, Yang is continuing his strategy of bribing for votes. This time he’s offering $120,000 over the course of the next year to a small number of lucky fans.