Back in 2019, comedian Shane Gillis landed what should have been his big break when he was tapped to join the cast of “Saturday Night Live.”
That, however, never happened. Days after the announcement he’d been hired, footage from an old podcast surface in which he used ethnic slurs and homophobic language.
The ensuing backlash led “SNL” to cut ties with him, firing Gillis before the season even started.
A Stunning Comeback
GettyTo paraphrase Paul McCartney, his lucky break had been broken in two.
Yet that wasn’t the end of the Shane Gillis story, only the beginning. Parlaying that notoriety into an enviable online following, Gillis then hit paydirt with a hit standup comedy special for Netflix, and then his own Netflix sitcom, “Tires” (Season 3 is set to debut in August).
Meanwhile, “SNL” subsequently invited him back to host — twice — the first time in the show’s half-century history that a cast member fired before ever making it on the air has hosted the show.
Two Record-Breaking Performances
Yet all that was just a warm-up. Gillis delivered indisputable evidence of his popularity on July 17 when his comedy performance at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field was attended by 73,946 fans, with 77,047 tickets sold.
This was enough to land him in the Guinness Book of World Records — twice.
As Variety reported, Guinness World Records adjudicator Andy Glass confirmed that Gillis now holds the record for the most tickets sold for a solo performance by a comedian.
In addition, Gillis also earned a second Guinness World Record for the largest audience for a comedian; the previous record holder is German comic Mario Barth, who performed for 67,733 people at Berlin’s Olympiastadion in 2008.
Special Guests Hit the Stage
During that record-breaking show, Gillis also welcomed some surprise special guests onstage with him.
Joining the action was fellow standup comic Dave Chappelle, rapper Meek Mill, Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce, and Three 6 Mafia.
A Really Big Show
Gillis addressed what it was like to perform for such a monumentally huge crowd during a subsequent edition of “Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast,” which he hosts alongside comedian Matt McClusker.
“I’d be shaking if I was one of you guys. Like visibly,” McClusker tells Gillis at the start of the podcast, which was recorded on the day prior to the performance.
Gillis joked that he sent McClusker a photo that he’d taken from onstage, “and I was like, ‘We should not do this. We should leave the country.'”
Reflecting on preparing to perform standup comedy for nearly 80,000 people, Gillis shared his honest assessment.
“It’s terrifying,” he admitted. “It’s the scariest thing possible.” He jokingly added, “This was a huge mistake.”
Looking back, Gillis confessed that he hadn’t really considered the logistics of a crowd that big when he initially agreed to do the show.
“I got talked into this a year-and-a-half ago, and never really considered that one day it was going to actually happen,” he added. “And it’s tomorrow, and I’m completely ill-prepared.”
