The Dispute Index

Michael Che

Portrait of Michael Che
Arturo Pardavila III / Flickr, via Wikimedia CommonsSourceCC BY-SA 2.0Cropped and contrast adjusted by Wikimedia Commons user 0xF8E8; resized from the Commons file.

Michael Che is an American comedian and writer. He has co-anchored the Weekend Update segment of NBC's Saturday Night Live since 2014 and has released stand-up specials, including Michael Che: Shot in Minnesota on Netflix in 2026.

Instagram (opens in a new tab)

What DI has documented

DI has documented statements by Michael Che on Arts and Culture and Sexism. Read the quotations, original sources and related cases below.

Topics in this coverage

Statements by Michael Che

Portrait of Michael Che

Michael Che

Role at the time: Saturday Night Live Weekend Update co-anchor, in a TODAY interview

Minimized

Response to this claim

Calling women who wear shorts at the gym whores, as Shane Gillis did in his Saturday Night Live monologue, is misogynistic.

“That’s comedy. It’s like, you think it’s funny and then some people don’t”
Open source (opens in a new tab)Michael Che reacts to Shane Gillis' controversial 'SNL' monologue, talks new Netflix specialFull article
Why we used this label

The reference point is Shane Gillis's joke in his October 10, 2026 Saturday Night Live monologue that women at the gym now dress like whores. Che treats the joke as ordinary comedy that some people find funny and others do not, and later says he can't criticize anybody for swinging and missing, so we labeled it Minimized. The closest competing label is Explicitly declined; it loses because Che answered the question and characterized the joke rather than refusing to comment.

Read statementShane Gillis's SNL joke that women at the gym dress like "whores" draws criticism as misogynistic and defenses from commentators

A participant is a subject of the case. A speaker has a statement documented in it. A commentator has an opinion or editorial documented in it.