The 'Saturday Night Live' cast is showing solidarity at the 2019 Emmys.
The Saturday Night Live cast is showing solidarity at the 2019 Emmys.
On Sunday, a few of SNL's male cast members -- Alex Moffat, Mikey Day, Kyle Mooney, Beck Bennett and Kenan Thompson -- posed on the red carpet together. All five gentlemen looked sharp on Sunday, matching in black tuxedos and bow ties.
Their red carpet appearance comes as the NBC variety show has been under fire lately after comedian Shane Gillis was announced as a new cast member and then was fired on Monday after his past racist and homophobic remarks surfaced.
Chris Redd, Ego Nwodim, Heidi Gardner and Melissa Villaseñor also later posed on the red carpet together.
On Monday, a spokesperson for SNL on behalf of executive producer Lorne Michaels told ET that they weren't aware of Gillis' offensive remarks -- which include racist jokes about Chinese people -- before hiring him.
"After talking with Shane Gillis, we have decided that he will not be joining SNL," the statement read. "We want SNL to have a variety of voices and points of view within the show, and we hired Shane on the strength of his talent as a comedian and his impressive audition for SNL. We were not aware of his prior remarks that have surfaced over the past few days. The language he used is offensive, hurtful and unacceptable. We are sorry that we did not see these clips earlier, and that our vetting process was not up to our standard."
Following SNL's statement, Gillis tweeted, "It feels ridiculous for comedians to be making serious public statements but here we are. I'm a comedian who was funny enough to get SNL. That can't be taken away."
"Of course I wanted an opportunity to prove myself at SNL, but I understand it would be too much of a distraction," he continued. "I respect the decision they made. I'm honestly grateful for the opportunity. I was always a MAD TV guy anyway."
ET spoke with former SNL star Abby Elliott about the controversy at NBC's Comedy Starts Here event at NeueHouse in Los Angeles on Tuesday, and she explained why she supports the decision to fire Gillis. Watch the video below to hear her thoughts:
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