Comedian Shane Gillis\u2019s opening monologue as host at the Espys awards ceremony went over awkwardly in front of some of the biggest names in sports on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
Early on, he called out various famous faces in the Dolby Theatre crowd in Los Angeles, including retired WNBA star Diana Taurasi, who received the Icon Award later in the evening. Gillis asked the crowd to \u201cgive it up for Taurasi\u201d, but only after he had called the six-time Olympic champion \u201cDeanna.\u201d The camera showed an unsmiling Taurasi shaking her head. Gillis quickly caught his mistake, saying, \u201cMy bad on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gillis then moved on to another basketball star, Caitlin Clark<\/a>, who wasn\u2019t at the ceremony as she deals with an injury ahead of this weekend\u2019s WNBA All-Star game.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Caitlin Clark retires from the WNBA, she\u2019s going to work at a Waffle House so she can continue doing what she loves most: fist fighting Black women,\u201d he joked. While some in the audience laughed, others appeared uncomfortable.<\/p>\n Gillis continued on for 10 minutes, drawing a scattering of boos at one point, with jokes about Donald Trump<\/a> and Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n \u201cDonald Trump wants to stage a UFC fight on the White House lawn<\/a>. The last time he staged a fight in DC, Mike Pence almost died,\u201d Gillis said. He then turned to Epstein, saying: \u201cThere was supposed to be an Epstein joke here, but I guess it got deleted.\u201d Last week, the justice department and the FBI announced that a review of the case <\/a>files had confirmed that Epstein had killed himself, and there was no list of his clients to be made public.<\/p>\n Gillis\u2019 performance drew mixed reviews on social media, with some praising his criticism of Trump, while others criticized the racially charged reference to Clark at a time when WNBA players have been the subject of online bigotry<\/a>. Gillis was dropped from the Saturday Night Live cast<\/a> in 2019 after podcast footage surfaced of him making racist, homophobic and misogynistic comments. Gillis apologized at the time, saying in a statement he was \u201ca comedian who pushes boundaries\u201d but who \u201csometimes missed\u201d. He returned to guest host the show in 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n