Michael Che got pulled into the latest uproar surrounding Shane Gillis and his “SNL” monologue against his will on Thursday as “Today” co-anchor Laura Jarrett grilled him on whether he thought the inflammatory jokes about women were funny.
While appearing on “Today” for his new stand-up special, Che – who co-hosts “Weekend Update” with Colin Jost – was asked for his thoughts on Gillis’ monologue. The guest host, who was previously fired from “SNL” before breaking big on his own, got a ton of blowback for a joke about women at the gym dressing like “whores.”
“I haven’t been to the gym in so long, I didn’t know women just dress like whores now,” Gillis quipped.
He added: “Look, I’m sorry, there’s no other way to describe [it]. Have you seen it? I’ve seen it. The shorts. Have you seen the shorts? Those neon, they’re like artificial bait-colored. And the wrinkles go around the cheeks and all combined 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.”
Che was asked on “Today” what he made of the jokes and the uproar that followed.
“That’s comedy,” Che said. “It’s like, you think it’s funny and some people don’t.”
Watch Che’s full interview below:
Jarrett asked what Che’s reaction to the joke and monologue was but the comedian admitted that he missed it in the moment because he was prepping for his “Weekend Update” segment of the show.
“I was at cue cards, actually, thinking about what I was going to say that was going to make people upset,” he said. “So I didn’t even really see it until like the next day.”
He added, when pressed: “I didn’t think about it, honestly.”
Later in the interview, Jarrett brought up the yearly tradition of Che and his “Weekend Update” co-host joke-swapping for each other blind. She pointed out that fans of the show love it but the jokes can “go hard.”
“Yeah, that’s why I can criticize anybody for swinging and missing,” Che responded, nodding back to Gillis. “I’ve definitely swung and missed too. I’ve tried to keep that heat off of me.”
While Che kept things pretty tight about Gillis’ joke, other “SNL” talent have been less quiet. Former star Ego Nwodim took to her Instagram story, posing in her athletic leggings and matching long-sleeve workout shirt, to fire back at the comedian.
“Whore reporting for duty,” she wrote on the image.
She followed it up with a picture of her eggs Benedict, writing “getting my 30 grams of protein in after heauxing.”
Nwodim was not the only celebrity to publicly call out Gillis for his remarks. “Schitt’s Creek” co-creator and star Dan Levy was “speechless” by the comments the “Tires” actor made.
“Women wearing short shorts at the gym does not make them whores,” Levy said on Instagram Sunday. “It makes the men calling them whores misogynists. There’s a difference there.”
He added: “To be perfectly honest, more men need to be standing up in opposition to it because it’s complacency that has created the environment with which women are sexually assaulted and it’s a ‘conversation’ as opposed to a crime.”
The post Michael Che Says He ‘Can’t Criticize’ Shane Gillis for ‘SNL’ Jokes About Women at the Gym: ‘That’s Comedy’ appeared first on TheWrap.
