Saturday Night Live UK showed that it’s not afraid to bite the hand that feeds it by taking a swipe at the U.S. version of SNL and its most recent host, Shane Gillis.
On Saturday, October 17, “Weekend Update UK” cohost Ania Magliano told back-to-back jokes about what occurred on SNL U.S. last Saturday, October 10, including mocking Gillis, 38, for suggesting in his monologue that some women dress like “whores” at the gym
“A ride operator at Munich Oktoberfest was praised for giving free cycling shorts to female riders,” she began. “Wearing the gym shorts will protect women from being upskirted but it does make them vulnerable to something much worse…”
A photo of Gillis delivering his monologue on last weekend’s Saturday Night Live flashed on the screen, drawing laughs from the U.K. audience.
Magliano, 28, then roasted Gillis for accidentally saying “f***” live on air during a Dr. Seuss sketch.
“Last week on SNL, comedian Shane Gillis also caused controversy by dropping the F-bomb,” she explained. “Oh Shane, you’re not allowed to say that, you stupid f***ing c***t.”
The uncensored joke was met with uproarious laughter from the SNL UK studio audience while Magliano grinned at the camera.
The timing of the shot at Gillis was curious since Saturday’s SNL UK also featured the first official crossover between the two versions of the show, as U.S. cast member James Austin Johnson reprised his impression of President Donald Trump for a sketch where U.K. comedian George Fouracres played Prime Minister Andy Burnham.
The ripples of controversy over Gillis’ SNL monologue continue one week after he raised more than a few eyebrows by mocking women’s gym attire on the stage of Studio 8H.
“I haven’t been to the gym in so long, I didn’t know women just dress like whores now?” Gillis quipped. “Look, I’m sorry, there’s no other way to describe [it]. Have you seen it? I’ve seen it. You’ve seen the shorts? They’re those neon, like, artificial bait-colored [shorts], and the wrinkles go around the cheeks and all combine at the butthole. And don’t look! You’re not allowed to look.”
His comments were condemned as sexist by numerous viewers and by fellow comedians, including former SNL cast member Ego Nwodim and Schitt’s Creek star Dan Levy.
“Women wearing short shorts to the gym does not make them whores,” Levy, 43, told his Instagram followers on Sunday, October 11. “It makes the men calling them whores misogynists. There’s a difference there.”
The comedian noted that he’d “seen more men’s nipples at the gym than I’ve ever seen women showing their bodies off.”
“I’m speechless that something like that can exist on live national television,” Levy went on to say. “And to be perfectly honest, more men need to be standing up in opposition to it 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.”
He added, “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? And I’m sorry if this gets me in trouble with the internet, but f***.”
Saturday Night Live U.S. airs its next new episode on NBC Saturday, October 31, at 11:30 p.m. ET with host Inde Navarrette and musical guest Gracie Abrams. Cynthia Erivo and Blossoms will headline SNL UK on Sky One Saturday, October 24.
