Shane Gillis uses friend's wife to fool ESPYs crowd with WNBA joke
'Four-time WNBA All-Star Brittany Hicks is here, everybody, give it up for Brittany,' Gillis said innocuously partway through his monologue.
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The crowd at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood politely applauded, before Gillis waited a beat, smirked, and said: 'I'm joking around, that's my friend's wife. I knew none of you knew WNBA players.'
The crowd awkwardly murmured in response, although Hicks, a businesswoman, and her husband, comedian Matt McCusker, appeared to find it hilarious.
As with almost every other joke made in his fiery, controversial set, the reactions on social media were a mixed bag.
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3 Matt McCusker (left) and Brittany Hicks (right) were loving Shane Gillis' ESPYs joke about Hicks Wednesday night
@KFCBarstool/X
'Using your best friend's wife to set up a joke about a fake WNBA player to call out an entire audience for pandering is perhaps the best executed joke of all time. And it came at the ESPYS!!' wrote @KFCBarstool in an X post that got 48,000 likes.
'Gillis just served up one of the classiest middle fingers in award show history,' wrote another. 'Straight outta the Ricky Gervais playbook.'
3 Comedian Shane Gillis at the ESPYs at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood Wednesday night.
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'Best joke of all time!!!!' said a third.
Others were less amused.
'Punching down is never funny,' wrote one user on X.
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'That's not funny,' said another. 'Like, at all.'
3 Shane Gillis before the ESPYs on Wednesday night.
River / MEGA
The quip wasn't the only time Gillis, 37, poked fun at the WNBA — he also cracked multiple controversial jokes about Caitlin Clark.
First, the star of the Netflix show 'Tires' compared himself to Clark because they're both 'whites from the Midwest who have nailed a bunch of 3s.'
Then, he went on to say: 'When Caitlin Clark retires from the WNBA, she's going to work at a Waffle House so she can continue doing what she loves most, fist fighting Black women.'
The WNBA was far from the only target of the monologue, though, with Gillis taking aim at anyone and everyone in the sports world and beyond — including Aaron Rodgers, President Donald Trump, Bill Belichick and Mets star Juan Soto.
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