Grace Brassel is taking aim at ex-boyfriend Shane Gillis over his “Saturday Night Live” monologue.
The social media personality, who dated the comedian for roughly a year before their quiet split, fired back at his controversial gym jokes through a series of pointed Instagram posts this week. Brassel, who confirmed the relationship with Gillis in July 2024, began her response Tuesday by reposting a video of Dan Levy tearing into the host’s “misogynistic” material.
“ANYWAYS… y’all need anything from the store?” Brassel wrote on her Instagram Stories, brushing off the routine that has drawn widespread criticism since Gillis took the Studio 8H stage Saturday.
She doubled down Wednesday with a gym selfie captioned “fitcheck!” and later shared footage of her workout routine topped with the message, “Fully body workout for my hoes.” The posts landed as female celebrities and “SNL” veterans mounted their own visible pushback against the 38-year-old host’s remarks.
Jenna Bush Hager weighed in during Tuesday’s “Today With Jenna & Sheinelle,” linking the bit to broader cultural problems.
“This perpetuates what is happening in our culture where people are commenting on women’s looks ad nauseam … and it’s not OK,” Bush Hager said on the NBC morning program.
Kathy Griffin went further in an exclusive statement, placing Gillis within a specific comedy ecosystem she finds tired and hostile.
“They all tell the same jokes … and they tell these jokes about women that are from like 100 years ago, like women should be in the kitchen and shut up and all this other stuff,” Griffin said. She added that men from the “TikTok or podcast world” all “look like they can’t get laid.”
Cecily Strong, the “SNL” alum who spent a decade on the show, matched Brassel’s energy with her own fitness-themed clapback. Strong posted an Instagram Stories photo Wednesday showing her Pilates outfit with a deliberately provocative caption.
“On my way to Pilates in my new slutty ass orange shoes and rainbow socks,” she wrote. “Might sell sex on the way not sure.”
The original monologue that triggered the responses found Gillis returning to the show that fired him as a cast member in 2019 just five days after hiring him. During his opening, he complained about women’s gym attire with graphic specificity.
“I haven’t been to the gym in so long, I didn’t realize women just dressed like whores now,” Gillis said. “Look, I’m sorry there’s no other way to describe it. Have you seen it, I’ve seen it,” He continued: “The shorts, have you seen the shorts? Those neon, they’re like artificial bait color. The wrinkles go around the cheeks and all combine at the butthole.”
Levy, the “Schitt’s Creek” star, had already gone viral with his own takedown of the material before Brassel amplified his critique to her followers. The pile-on has made Gillis’s return hosting gig one of the most scrutinized “SNL” episodes of the season, though the comedian himself has stayed silent as the backlash multiplies across platforms and generations of performers.
Gillis has not publicly responded to any of the criticism from his ex-girlfriend, the “SNL” alumnae, or the celebrities who have joined the chorus.