‘SNL’ Shane Gillis Episode Ratings Revealed: Was He a Hit or Miss?

Shane Gillis‘ controversial return as Saturday Night Live host proved a winner for the long-running NBC sketch show, with ratings up from the prior week and the same period in 2025.

According to LateNighter, citing Nielsen Live+Same Day data, SNL‘s October 10 episode averaged 4.4 million total viewers and 1.1 million viewers in the key Adults 18-49 demographic. That was up 1 percent in total viewers and 4 percent in the demo from last week.

Compared with the show’s third episode last season, which Sabrina Carpenter hosted, Gillis’ episode was up 4 percent in total viewers and 15 percent in the key demo.

It was also Gillis’ highest-rated episode across his three times hosting the show. His first appearance in February 2024 averaged 4 million total viewers and 1 million in the demo, while his March 2025 visit drew 4.3 million total viewers and 895,000 demo viewers.

As LateNighter noted, this week’s SNL was the first live coast-to-coast airing of the season, after the show’s first two episodes suffered delays in many parts of the country due to college football overruns.

Gillis faced backlash after his opening monologue on Saturday for comments he made about some women gym-users. “I haven’t been to the gym in so long, I didn’t know women just dress like whores now?” he said. “Look, I’m sorry, there’s no other way to describe [it].”

He continued, “Have you seen it? I’ve seen it. You’ve seen the shorts? They’re those neon, like, artificial bait-colored [shorts], and the wrinkles go around the cheeks and all combine at the butthole. And don’t look! You’re not allowed to look.”

Many viewers and critics slammed Gillis’ comments, including Schitt’s Creek star Dan Levy, who said he was “speechless” that something like that made it to air.

Related

'SNL': Shane Gillis Drops F-Bomb in 'Green Eggs & Ham' Skit

“Women wearing short shorts at the gym does not make them whores. It makes the men calling them whores misogynists,” Levy said in an Instagram Reel on Sunday night (October 11). “There’s a difference there. By the way, I’ve seen more men’s nipples at the gym than I’ve ever seen women showing their bodies off.”

Levy continued, “But I’m speechless that something like that can exist on live national television. And to be perfectly honest, more men need to be standing up in opposition to it because it’s complacency that has created the environment in which women are sexually assaulted and it’s a ‘conversation’ as opposed to a ‘crime.'”

SNL is now on a two-week break and will return on October 31, with Obsession star Inde Navarrette hosting for the first time.