Mario Cantone Reveals He Was Cut From ‘The Tonight Show’ Because His Act Had a ‘Gay Edge’: ‘Pushed Aside’

Mario Cantone has a lot to say about the doors that were slammed in his face.

The comedian and iconic Sex and the City star, 66, appeared on the May 11 episode of the Still Here Hollywood With Steve Kmetko podcast and opened up about the discrimination he faced early in his career, including one particularly painful moment that has stayed with him for decades.

“I got f**king pushed aside and kicked and fired, many times,” Cantone said on the podcast.

In 1986, the And Just Like That… star was booked to appear on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Talent booker Jim McCawley had approached him at The Improv after seeing his act and was enthusiastic about getting him on the show.

“He’s like, ‘I don’t know what you’re going to do. We’re going to put together six minutes. You’re amazing. We’re going to do this,” Cantone recalled of McCawley, who died in 1997 at 54.

Then, a week before the taping, the call came. “And then like a week before he said, ‘I looked at the tape again and your act has a gay edge to it and I think will make Johnny nervous,'” the stand-up comedian said. “And he pulled the date.”

The timing made the rejection cut even deeper. Lily Tomlin, one of Cantone’s biggest inspirations, was scheduled to be a guest on that same episode.

Carson died in 2005 at 79.

Cantone was not openly gay onstage at the time, he avoided talking about dating women and instead leaned into celebrity impressions of figures such as Bette Davis and Julia Child.

“If you didn’t know, you were an idiot,” he pointed out.

And he was aware that his identity was costing him opportunities. “Every time there was an audition where the networks would come, for a development deal or whatever? Never,” he added.

The Broadway star spent years doing stand-up at clubs that largely accepted him.

“They liked what I did,” he said. But when networks got involved, the doors consistently closed.

He also told host Steve Kmetko, 73, that he was “horrified” of working mainstream clubs out of fear of being targeted with homophobic slurs from the back of the room late at night. “Which did happen,” the Masked Singer alum added.

The turning point came when Cantone was cast as Anthony Marentino in season 3 of Sex and the City in 2000. He later reprised the role on HBO’s And Just Like That…

“I was a [series] regular for the first time in my life,” he said, adding that it “changes your whole way of life.”

This May, Cantone returns to Broadway in Celebrity Autobiography, where stars read excerpts from real celebrity memoirs, per New York Theatre Guide. The cast includes Scott Adsit, Gayle King, Kenan Thompson and Rita Wilson.

As for where he stands today on being out and proud, Cantone summed it up simply.

“I got one foot in the grave, one on a banana peel,” he joked.