After several days of internet chatter over his Saturday Night Live hosting debut, Shane Gillis has had enough.
The polarizing comic briefly weighed in on social media, urging fans and foes alike to “knock it off.”
In a since-deleted post to both X and Instagram Monday night, Gillis wrote: “I didn’t bomb. And I didn’t crush the libs. And the lady in the band not laughing is totally fine. Knock it off.”
The fired SNL castmember’s return to the show certainly did get people talking, but perceptions of whether he “killed” or not have seemed to largely fall along partisan lines. (A frequent guest on Joe Rogan’s popular podcast, Gillis has a large but not exclusively conservative fanbase.)
Ratings for Gillis’ hosting turn on SNL were similarly mixed. Although the show’s total viewers were down compared to recent episodes, he drew one of this season’s largest audiences in the key 18-49 demo that advertisers covet most.
As for “the lady in the band” Gillis referenced in his post, that’s Maddie Rice, who plays guitar with the SNL band. And as some of the show’s diehard fans were quick to point out, she rarely cracks a smile from her very visible perch behind the host during show’s monologue. In an interview with Vulture’s Devon Ivie last month, Rice said of her sometimes stoic look on the show, “whatever laughing muscle is within me isn’t online at that time.”
