Michael Che showed up to the Today show on October 15 to talk about his new Netflix special, and instead found himself fielding questions about Shane Gillis’ SNL monologue, which he deflected with a mix of shrugs and self-deprecation. According to Today, host Laura Jarrett pressed the Weekend Update anchor on the gym joke that has dominated comedy chatter all week, and Che insisted he had not even seen it live. The exchange, described by multiple outlets as tense and awkward, was exactly the scenario Che had lamented on Instagram earlier in the week, after the show aired.
The joke that started it all
Gillis hosted SNL for the third time on Saturday, October 10, 2026, and used his opening monologue to riff on women’s gym attire, Deadline reported. The line that landed him in hot water, per Today: “I haven’t been to the gym in so long I didn’t know women just dress like whores now.”
The backlash was swift and loud. Gillis has a complicated history with the show, having been hired as a cast member in 2019 and fired within days after past racist remarks on his podcast surfaced. His return as a repeat host has never been without controversy, and this monologue did not help.
For good measure, Gillis also accidentally dropped an expletive during a live sketch that night. It was edited out of online versions, and he apologized during the curtain call.
Che saw it coming
Che had a Netflix special to promote. “Michael Che: Shot in Minnesota” dropped on October 13, per Today, which should have made this week a victory lap. Instead, Che could feel the Gillis questions barreling toward him.
Ahead of his Today appearance, he posted a series of Instagram Stories lamenting his fate, Just Jared reported. “wonder what every f—— questions gonna be about 🙄..thanks a lot shane,” he wrote.
Reader, he was correct.
The interview
When Jarrett brought up the monologue, Che’s first move was to claim he missed it entirely. “I was at cue cards, actually, thinking about what I was going to say that was going to make people upset, so I didn’t even see it until, like, the next day,” he said, per Today.
Pressed further, he offered a comedian’s standard defense. “That’s comedy, you think it’s funny and then some people don’t,” Che said on Today.
Asked whether he had reflected on the joke at all, he kept it short. “I didn’t think about it honestly,” he told Jarrett, according to Today. He then leaned into a bit about his own professional shortcomings: “There’s so much going on. It’s really hard to see what everyone is doing, especially for me. I’m not what they call ‘good at my job,’ so I don’t pay attention to that.”
The Daily Beast also quoted Che declining to pile on his fellow comic. “That’s why I can’t criticize anybody for swinging and missing because I’ve definitely swung and missed, too,” he said.
Che has built an entire persona around not caring what anyone thinks, so the squirming was less about guilt and more about a man who clearly wanted to talk about his special and got stuck relitigating someone else’s monologue instead. Still, it made for uncomfortable morning television.
Everyone else had plenty to say
While Che kept his powder dry, other SNL alumni did not. Dan Levy, who hosted the show in 2021, posted an Instagram Reel on Sunday, October 11, slamming the monologue as misogynistic and calling on more men to speak up, Variety reported.
“Women wearing short shorts at the gym does not make them whores. It makes the men calling them whores misogynists,” Levy said in the Reel, per Variety. Deadline reported he added, “I’m speechless that something like that can exist on live national television,” and “More men need to be defending women more. This is not a women’s issue, this is an everybody issue.”
Celebrities including Viola Davis, Elizabeth Banks, and Hannah Einbinder voiced support in the comments.
Former cast member Ego Nwodim, who was on SNL from 2018 to 2025, took a cheekier route. On Monday, October 13, she posted a gym selfie to Instagram Stories captioned “Whore reporting for duty,” Deadline reported, followed by a post-workout meal photo captioned “getting my 30 grams of protein in after heauxing.”
Honestly, that might be the best rebuttal of the week.
What’s next
Che’s special is out now, and he will presumably keep doing press for it, Gillis questions and all. Whether he ever offers a more substantive take on the monologue remains to be seen, though his Today performance suggests he would rather let the joke speak for itself and move on.
For now, the Weekend Update anchor has made one thing clear: he was looking at the cue cards, not the host, and he would very much like to talk about Minnesota.
