Biography

Shane Michael Gillis (born December 11, 1987) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and podcaster. Gillis started performing comedy in 2012, and in 2016, along with fellow stand-up comedian Matt McCusker, began co-hosting Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast, the most subscribed-to podcast on Patreon as of 2024. Gillis had a breakout year in 2019; the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal named him one of its "New Faces" in July, and in September he was announced as a newly-hired cast member on NBC's sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live (SNL). He subsequently became the subject of a controversy and was fired after five days at SNL due to backlash over a 2018 clip from his podcast in which derogatory language, such as Asian ethnic slurs, were used, sparking a discussion on context and intent when certain topics are used for comedic purposes. In 2020, Gillis launched the online sketch series Gilly & Keeves in collaboration with filmmaker John McKeever, and he released his first comedy special, Shane Gillis: Live in Austin, on YouTube in 2021.