(CNN) "Saturday Night Live" has fired one of its most recent hires, Shane Gillis, just days after videos of comedian making bigoted comments came to light.

"After talking with Shane Gillis, we have decided that he will not be joining 'SNL,'" an 'SNL' spokesperson on behalf of Lorne Michaels said in a statement to CNN. "We want 'SNL' to have a variety of voices and points of view within the show, and we hired Shane on the strength of his talent as comedian and his impressive audition for 'SNL.' We were not aware of his prior remarks that have surfaced over the past few days. The language he used is offensive, hurtful and unacceptable. We are sorry that we did not see these clips earlier, and that our vetting process was not up to our standard."

Following news of his ouster, Gillis wrote on Twitter, "I'm a comedian who was funny enough to get 'SNL.' That can't be taken away."

He added: "Of course I wanted an opportunity to prove myself at 'SNL' but I understand it would be too much of a distraction. I respect the decision they made. I'm honestly grateful for the opportunity. I was always a Mad TV guy anyway."

The NBC sketch show had announced Gillis' hire last week, along with the additions of new series regulars Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang, the only full-time cast member of East-Asian descent next season. News broke that afternoon of Gillis' history of making defamatory comments about Chinese Americans , LGBTQ people and women during episodes of his and fellow comedian Matt McCusker's "Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast."