Comedian Shane Gillis made his ESPYs hosting debut Wednesday night with brutal blows aimed at President Donald Trump and the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
During ESPN’s 2025 ESPY Awards, which recognize major athletic achievements, unforgettable moments, and honor the leading performers and performances, 37-year-old Gillis began the night with an epic opening monologue.
After making a brief joke about Trump’s immigration policy and “alien” Juan Soto, Gillis landed a second savage jab at the president over the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol by his supporters.
“Donald Trump wants to stage a UFC fight on the White House lawn,” he said. “The last time he staged a fight in D.C., [former Vice President] Mike Pence almost died.”
As the audience reeled in laughter and applause, a surprised Gillis insisted that he hadn’t even written the gag.
“Actually, there was supposed to be an Epstein joke here, but I guess it got deleted,” he quipped, in reference to the ongoing controversy surrounding Trump’s insistence that there is no major list of clients with whom Epstein is alleged to have trafficked young girls, despite earlier indications of such files.
“Probably deleted itself, right? Probably never existed, actually,” the comedian added. “Let’s move on as a country and ignore that.”
Gillis’ night at the ESPYs comes amid his career comeback after he was fired from Saturday Night Live in 2019 before he even had the chance to make his debut as a cast member. That year, he had been selected to join the 45th season’s cast, alongside Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman. However, within hours of his casting, podcast clips of him making homophobic and racist jokes resurfaced.
Not long after his earlier comments went viral, Gillis was dropped from SNL. He has since been welcomed back to host the show twice: once in February 2024 and a second time this past March.
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Last month, he was announced as the host of the 2025 ESPY Awards.
“Shane is not only one of the top comedians today, but also a huge sports fan, which made him an easy choice to host The ESPYS,” said Craig Lazarus, ESPN vice president and executive producer of The ESPYS. “We are thrilled to work with him to create an entertaining show celebrating this year’s best moments in sports and are excited to see what he’ll do on stage.”
The ESPYs, created and presented by ESPN, help to raise awareness and funds for the V Foundation for Cancer Research, the charity founded by ESPN and the late basketball coach Jim Valvano in 1993.
The annual award show brings together the biggest names in sports to celebrate the greatest athletes and the year’s top moments.
This year, seven-time Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles received the award for Best Athlete in Women’s Sports, while NBA star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder earned the award for Best Athlete in Men’s Sports.
Other standout winners of the night included basketball star Caitlin Clark (Best WNBA Player), the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles (Best Team), Los Angeles Dodgers’ superstar Shohei Otani (Best MLB Player), and two-time tennis grand slam champion Coco Gauff (Best Tennis Player).
