Dan Levy criticises Shane Gillis over SNL gym joke
Dan Levy has criticised Shane Gillis over his latest Saturday Night Live monologue, saying more men need to speak out against it.
Gillis hosted the NBC sketch show on 10 October 2026, opening with a seven-minute monologue, according to NBC. In it, he said: “I haven’t been to the gym in so long, I didn’t know women just dress like whores now?” That line was reported by Variety.
Levy, who hosted SNL himself in 2021, answered on Sunday night, 11 October, in an Instagram Reel. He said he was speechless that material like that could go out on live national television.
“Women wearing short shorts at the gym does not make them whores,” Levy said. “It makes the men calling them whores misogynists.” He added that he had seen more men’s nipples at the gym than he had seen women showing their bodies off.
His wider point was direct. Men need to be defending women more, he said. He called it an everybody issue rather than a women’s issue.
The episode was Gillis’s third turn as host, after February 2024 and March 2025. His history with the programme goes back further. In 2019 he was hired as a featured player, a newcomer role in the cast, then fired days later after podcast clips resurfaced in which he made racist and homophobic comments.
Saturday’s appearance also drew attention for other reasons. Gillis dropped the f-bomb during the hosting stint. His monologue included material about needing to lose weight, as noted by Variety, which headlined its coverage of the night with the phrase ‘You’re Either Gay or You’re Hitler’.
NBC has kept the performance in its slot. The broadcaster maintains a first-party page titled ‘Watch Shane Gillis’s SNL Stand-Up Monologue and Sketches from October 10, 2026’.
What makes this stand out is the chain. A former host used his own feed to challenge a current host’s monologue, the morning after transmission, and framed the response around who else should speak next.
