Comedian Shane Gillis said President Donald Trump getting shot “would be funny to see” in his first stand-up comedy show since he was fired from Saturday Night Live, following the surfacing of old jokes where he used slurs against Asians and gays.
Performing a 10-minute stand-up set at the New York comedy club The Stand on Wednesday evening, Gillis discussed his feelings around the ordeal, USA Today reports.
“It’s been weird,” Gillis said during his set. “Twitter, obviously, has been nuts. You try to stay off it when the whole country hates you. That’s not a fun feeling.”
“Everybody’s like, ‘You can’t say (expletive) and not expect consequences,'” he continued. “I’m fine with the consequences — that’s it, I’m not arguing. But I do want everyone to know that I have been reading every one of my death threats in an Asian accent.”
The 31-year-old went on to say his remarks led him to being branded as “alt-right” and a supporter of Donald Trump.
“As soon as they decide you’re a bad guy, you’re just alt-right now or something,” Gillis said. “For real, though, I did not vote for Donald Trump. Look at me: I didn’t, but that was tough. His whole campaign was at me. ‘Are you a fat idiot?’ ‘Yeah, dude, what’re we doing?'”
“Trump is funny,” Gillis continued. “He’s funnier than everyone I know. If Trump was the next comic, he’d bury me. He’d come out and be like, ‘Fat. Loser. Fired.'”
He then joked about Trump’s hypothetical assassination, arguing it would be “funny to see”:
I don’t want you to think I’m too pro-Trump,” Gillis said. “I will say this: Of all the presidents I’ve been alive for, Trump would definitely be the funniest one to see get shot. Like, without a doubt, that’d be funny. I’m not asking for that; I don’t want that to happen, but it would be funny to see. He’d be on stage talking (expletive), the shooter would be coming at him, and he’d be like, ‘Sit down.’ He’d definitely make a funny noise when he got hit. … It would be funny.
Gillis was removed from the NBC sketch comedy show just four days after SNL announced that he would be joining the cast for the show’s new season, premiering later this month.
“Let the fucking chinks live there,” he says of New York’s Chinatown, adding that a restaurant was “full of fucking Chinee [sic] in there.” During other episodes of the podcast, he was caught heard using words such as “retard” and “faggot.”
Gillis’s firing was widely criticized by his supporters and colleagues alike, including SNL alums Norm Macdonald and Robert Schneider, who denounced the new era of “cultural unforgiveness” against comedians.
Nevertheless, Gillis still issued an apology for any offense he may have caused.
“I’m a comedian who pushed boundaries. I sometimes miss,” he said in a statement. “If you go through my 10 years of comedy, most of it bad, you’re going to find a lot of bad misses. I’m happy to apologize to anyone who’s actually offended by anything I’ve said. My intention is never to hurt anyone, but I am trying to be the best comedian I can be and sometimes hat requires risks.”
Follow Ben Kew on Facebook, Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart.com.
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