Women interviewed by HuffPost are describing unwanted attention and comments about their bodies at the gym after Shane Gillis’ Saturday Night Live monologue turned women’s workout clothes into the subject of a national television joke.
The October 14 report shifts the focus from the comedian’s performance to the experiences of women who say they choose gym clothes for comfort and exercise, not to attract men. Their accounts include staring, unsolicited approaches and comments from men they had previously considered friends.
Gillis made the remarks while hosting the October 10 episode of SNL. During a routine about returning to the gym, he said he had not realised women ‘just dress like whores now’, before describing brightly coloured shorts and joking about being filmed in the background of workout videos.
NBC News reported that representatives for Gillis and SNL did not immediately respond to its requests for comment in its October 12 coverage. That account predates the HuffPost interviews and should not be read as a response to the individual women’s experiences.
Chicago comedian Nina Kern told HuffPost that she found the routine more offensive than inventive. Her criticism concerned its construction as comedy as well as its treatment of women. She also described feeling uncomfortable when a man she knew later messaged her about how she had looked in a gym top.
Kern said she generally wears leggings or cycling shorts with a large T-shirt. Her account complicates the idea that the disagreement is only about particularly revealing outfits: she described adjusting her clothing in anticipation of attention she did not want.
Abby Murphy, a radio host in Tampa, Florida, recalled noticing a man repeatedly looking toward her chest while she performed deadlifts during a class. Her first reaction was to question her own sports bra, although she had previously worn it without feeling self-conscious.
Murphy subsequently posted a tongue-in-cheek workout-outfit video on TikTok after the monologue. She told HuffPost that commenters defended Gillis or repeated the insult. Her objection was not that women’s gym clothes should be off limits to comedians, but that a premise still needs a punchline.
‘You haven’t really told me a joke. You’ve just told me what you think about women,’ she said.
Other interviewees described attention unrelated to how much skin their clothes exposed. Julia Young, a fitness and lifestyle creator in Los Angeles, recalled a man approaching her during a set while she wore headphones and a zipped-up hoodie. He offered to correct her form and then asked for her number, she told HuffPost.
Young said she selects clothes according to the workout and the temperature. In her account, form-fitting clothing can help her see her technique, while lighter outfits are practical for sweaty cardio sessions. Those explanations were her own reasons for dressing, not an invitation for strangers to comment.
An Australian fitness model identified as Ell described a different kind of encounter. A man she regarded as a gym friend admitted discussing a perceived change in her glute muscles with another man. She said the conversation upset her.
The interviews are individual accounts, not a survey measuring how often women encounter unwanted behaviour in gyms. They nevertheless identify the point several interviewees said the monologue missed: wearing athletic clothing and consenting to personal attention are not the same thing.
Actor Dan Levy was among the public figures who criticised the routine. In an Instagram video cited by NBC News, he said women wearing short shorts did not justify the label Gillis used and called on men to challenge objectification. That criticism was directed at the broadcast, separate from the later HuffPost interviews.
The appearance marked Gillis’ third turn hosting SNL, after appearances in 2024 and 2025, NBC News reported. The comedian, who also stars in Netflix’s Tires, has previously drawn attention for provocative material, including his 2025 ESPYs performance.
The latest interviews move beyond whether viewers laughed at Saturday’s monologue. For the women quoted, the issue is being able to complete a workout without having their clothes treated as an explanation for someone else’s behaviour.
