Why ‘The Roast Of Kevin Hart’ Did Not Land Well For Many

Comedy is an art and a science and it can be sharp or dull depending on many factors

Trigger Warning: there will be some messed up language in here to describe a point. Sorry in advance.

Trust me when I say I wanted to ignore what people have been talking about online, but I couldn’t. Not when speaking up and/or writing about it can encourage a deeper conversation about culture, comedy, and ethics. I particularly want to zoom in on Black Love — Black people loving themselves because this “roast” did not show that. This roast revealed that even I, a person who can laugh at ANY joke — should have boundaries. Some jokes go too far.

This roast was led by a racist

Do you know who Shane Gillis is?

Shane Gillis is a white man who served as host for The Roast of Kevin Hart. Shane is known for being fired from SNL(Saturday Night Live) when clips of him using racial slurs was found. Somehow, he was still able to perform his comedy and even headline this “roast”.

So, right from the start the “comedy” special was not going to land well. I’m sure he still has racist bones in his body.

As a side note, I did not watch the show, but from the many clips I did see — I’m glad I avoided it.

Some people(Black women) are not fans of Kevin

To be honest, I am not a fan of Kevin Hart’s. Never was. Especially when I learned how he would roast his own wife on stage and then she had to find out he was cheating on her with his side piece(as of now, he even cheated on his new wife). I did not like how he disrespected his first, Black wife and moved on to a non Black woman who he is not faithful to either.

His personal life is jacked up, he is NOT funny, and the fact that he wanted to do this roast where the majority of the comedians were racist white men, is odd to me.

One content creator, Chrissie, said **“Black men are quick to call Black women “bed wenches”, but doing this to themselves proves they are the BIGGEST bed wenches.” **[paraphrased]

Ouch, Chrissie!

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Yes, we all know that a roast is when the person themselves(Kevin Hart in this case) takes the hot seat to be joked on. It’s just that the jokes told by the white men were tasteless and not funny.

There’s dark humor, then there’s bad mouthing an entire race for giggles

“Her husband committed suicide three years into the marriage, I’ve been sitting next to her for two hours and I have to ask: how did he last that long?”

The above “joke” was made by Tony Hinchcliffe( a friend of Kevin’s — not surprised) regarding the real life suicide of Sheryl’s husband Michael Sparkman. A tragedy she kept hidden for decades, only to be roasted publicly by it in 2026.

When I watched that clip, I cringed. I searched my brain for a reason to laugh. Any reason, and could not find one. Not even one.

What is so funny about a woman losing her husband?

Then there was the George Floyd joke:

“You’ve done well though, Kevin. The Black community is so proud of you. Right now, George Floyd is looking up at us all laughing so hard that he can’t breathe,” Hinchcliffe said.

According to The Root, it wasn’t just George Floyd’s family who were disgusted. Friends, fans and other comedians did not like the joke.

In a statement to TMZ, spokesperson Travis Cains described the joke as “sad for the culture” and expressed shock on behalf of Floyd’s family and friends at Hart allowing him to broach the subject in the first place.

“It’s one thing to roast the people that’s there, it’s one thing to roast the people that may be in the audience there…but Tony Hinchcliffe joke about George Floyd didn’t make no f*cking sense to me,” Howery said. “It was no reason to bring George Floyd into this. It just was disgusting.”

Sheryl Underwood told very clever jokes but made constant references to tonguing down John Stamos and more references to her vagina. Again, resorting to sexual innuendos and to be honest the only comedian I liked so far(that I’ve seen) was Katt Williams.

“I’m surprised they invited me. That’s how little star power you have? They had to start inviting your enemies. I said, ‘I hate him.’ They said, ‘Come anyway.’”-Katt Williams

Here’s a breakdown of Katt’s industry plant joke about Kevin Hart from MSN:

He[Katt] revisited the industry plant accusation and twisted it into a literal joke, saying he kept burying Kevin and Kevin kept springing back up. He doubled down on the Hollywood puppet comment from his Club Shay Shay interview and offered a vulgar clarification about exactly who in the Netflix front office is operating the puppet. He pulled in the Diddy party rumors with a punchline that landed harder than most of the actual Diddy material in the room, suggesting Diddy only invited Kevin because he thought Kevin was 10 years old. The man came to work.

You may be wondering, did any comdian speak on such backlash at all? Especially the Black comedians? I could see that Tiffany Haddish, Regina Hall, and a few other Black names were there.

Did any of them have something to say in their defense of this mockery?

Well, Sheryl Underwood said something, but it wasn’t what I was looking for.

Sheryl told TMZ that The Rock appearing at the roast brought everyone or everything together. He made statements of his questionable “blackness” and even used the r- word(“retarded”) whereas in a normal setting, he would have to be politically correct.

In another interview, Sheryl said that behind the scenes, each comic “approved” what the other would say before getting on stage so I guess she approved the menacing joke about her husband who committed suicide in 1990? She said roasting was done to “keep their careers”.

By now you can probably guess I am not a fan of this whole “roasting” shenanigan that Netflix decided to air.

The only thing I agree with Sheryl about, is the freedom of speech part. I don’t like that we have to say “r-word” for retarded, or “g*rape” for rape, and “unalive” for killing. Let’s use words for what they are for.

However, I can take a joke, but I can’t take tasteless jokes that “land” all over the place.

I didn’t get goosebumps or laugh so hard I lost my breath listening to any of them except Katt Williams. Chelsea Handler and Sheryl had some amazing jokes, but they didn’t give me that deep, hearty belly laugh.

You know how back in the day Chris Rock was able to use the term Cacker and Ngger in his 90s standups and made the whole crowd laugh?

He was able to do that because comedy is an art and a science. You tell a joke with the truth laced in it. You can make fun of yourself and others at the same time. A lot of what he said about Black people was TRUE. A lot about what he said about white people and other non-whites, were also TRUE. It landed, it stuck, and it rings true even today.

Poking fun at a dead man who lost his breath because of a cop crushing his windpipe — is not funny.

Making fun of yet another dead man, someone’s deceased husband — is also not very funny.

I’m sure there were more racist jokes said that night, but I think I’ve had enough.

What are your thoughts on this? Are jokes just jokes? What is the line we do not cross and is there a line at all? Should there be a boundary in roasts? Was Sheryl Underwood right when she said roasts are ok because they are “pre-approved”?

Let me know in the comments!

Thank you for reading!