> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.theomnicosm.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Shane Gillis’s misogynistic ‘SNL’ monologue is now Lorne Michaels’s legacy
- URL: https://www.theomnicosm.com/the-cold-open-snl-shane-gillis-monologue/
- Published: 2026-10-13T02:02:34.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-13T02:02:34.000Z
- Description: Lorne Michaels speaks for ‘SNL.’ And until Michaels speaks up, Shane Gillis now speaks for him.
- Author: Bill Kuchman
- Tags: The Cold Open • Extras, The Cold Open, SNL, Shane GIllis

I don’t normally double-dip when it comes to writing up my thoughts on an episode of *SNL*, but the more I’ve thought about it, the angrier **Shane Gillis**’s monologue has made me.

> 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 ... have you seen it? I’ve seen it. The shorts. Have you seen the shorts? They’re like artificial-bait colored. And the wrinkles, the wrinkles go, like, around the cheeks and all combine 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.

I’m a 40-year-old dude, and this bit horrified me when I heard it live. I can’t even imagine how it would feel to be a young girl who has just discovered *SNL*, and you turn on Gillis’s episode to hear “women just dress like whores now” being presented as comedy.

There should be no home for his brand of comedy that revels in degrading women on *SNL*.

## Sign up for The Cold Open

Love reading about **Saturday Night Live*? Get ****The Open** newsletter in your inbox.

Subscribe 

Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. 

No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

Thanks to Gillis saying “fucking” during a live sketch, his monologue seemed to have snuck under the radar on Sunday. A lot of outlets, [**The Cold Open** included](https://www.theomnicosm.com/the-cold-open-snl-shane-gillis-review/), focused on the host dropping an f-bomb. 

But Gillis swearing on live TV is just a symptom of him lacking the skills and discipline to not let that slip during a sketch. His monologue, though, was not a mistake.

Multiple people posted online that Gillis had tested out the material in his *SNL* monologue during comedy club sets. “I saw Shane Gillis perform a few weeks ago (surprise set, I didn’t know going in) and he did what turned out to be exactly his *SNL* monologue,” [wrote *The New Yorker*’s **Helen Rosner**](https://www.threads.com/share/EByoN2VpW/?ref=theomnicosm.com). “He started out rocky, but this joke lost him the room. Near-total silence. It was bruuuutal.”

As outrage over the monologue boiled over on Monday, there’s a good chance the blowback appeared on your social media feed thanks to **Dan Levy**. “I’m speechless that something like that can exist on live national television,” [the *Schitt’s Creek* creator said in an Instagram reel](https://www.instagram.com/reel/DeYSYNXMcbH/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fweb%5Fcopy%5Flink&dlrf=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==). “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.’” 

The obvious outcome here is that Gillis never hosts *SNL* again and Michaels, *SNL* and NBC apologize for platforming Gillis’s misogyny. My fear, though, is that the outrage over this monologue is going to make Michaels dig in deeper.

In a normal world, there’s no way that Gillis ever hosts *SNL* to begin with, much less does he host the show three times over four seasons. But Michaels has a score to settle. Public opinion forced him to fire Gillis in 2019, and Michaels hasn’t forgotten that.

“He said something stupid, but it got blown up into the end of the world,” Michaels [told *The Wall Street Journal* in 2024](https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/television/saturday-night-live-50-season-lorne-michaels-bowen-yang-maya-rudolph-b624d0c8?ref=theomnicosm.com). “I was angry. I thought, You haven’t seen what we’re going to do, and what I’m going to try to bring out in him, because I thought he was the real thing.”

Lorne Michaels speaks for *SNL*. And until Michaels speaks up, Shane Gillis now speaks for him.

Everything you need to know about Season 52 

Check out the complete list of **SNL* Season 52 hosts, musical guests and reviews.

[We talkin’ TV? ](https://www.theomnicosm.com/who-is-hosting-snl/) 

[![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f4/8b/f48be8ca-23c6-4d81-b0cf-da2fb0785911/content/images/2026/08/the-cold-open-wordmark-1.png)](#/portal/account/plans) 

****The Cold Open is a publication of The Omnicosm.**  
Issue No. 92

****The Cold Open** is written and produced by ****Bill Kuchman**.  
Copyediting by ****Tim Kuchman**.

Get the full ****The Omnicosm** experience. Add ****Snackology** and ****Popculturology** to your subscription [****via your account settings**](https://www.theomnicosm.com/account/).

[Go to your account ](#/portal/account/plans) 

![The Omnicosm](https://storage.ghost.io/c/f4/8b/f48be8ca-23c6-4d81-b0cf-da2fb0785911/content/images/2026/08/the-omnicosm-wordmark-new-1.png)