To the surprise of no one, The Roast of Kevin Hart has remained a topic of conversation for weeks after it first hit streaming (via Netflix subscription), from reactions to Hart’s beef-quashing with Katt Williams to comics who’ve feuded in the aftermath. Unfortunately, a backlash quickly surfaced in response to polarizing roaster Tony Hinchcliffe making an insensitive joke about George Floyd six years after his controversial death. Hart finally shared his thoughts about the public reaction, and he wants people to calm down.
Hart stopped by The Breakfast Club, where co-host Charlamagne Tha God famously suffers no fools and rarely sidesteps potentially uncomfortable topics. So naturally the streaming Roast earned quite a bit of discussion, with the George Floyd reference coming up early on. Hart made it clear in a YouTube clip from the episode that he hasn’t partaken in the outrage against Hinchcliffe, despite knowing that the jokey reference wasn’t viewed positively by the Black community at large. As he put it:
Yeah, the George Floyd joke, it wasn't a tasteful joke to our culture, to our audience. But our audience that's watching the roast, if you're watching the roast, you get why they're doing it. You get why the racial humor is on the table. I wasn't shocked. That’s what they do. Go look at the Tom Brady one. That’s what they do. It happens every year when they do a roast. It’s not new. It’s not a new agenda. It’s not a new approach to comedy. . . . It's Tony Hinchcliffe. Like, I don't expect less. I don't expect more.
Kevin Hart
Hart made it clear that he was not expecting a comedian like Tony Hinchcliffe to hit the stage with G-rated softball insults, and that it would have been silly for anyone else to have those expectations.
As well, the Jumanji franchise star shared that he thinks all the complaints about the single joke are taking away from the grander gesture of applauding Hinchcliffe's time on-stage in its entirety. Hart continued:
Yes. I mean, that's why you're there. And I hate to say this, but I'm going to because we're being honest. People are talking about that joke — talk about his set. Tony Hinchcliffe arguably had the best set, or one of the best sets, between Tony and Sheryl, And I would say Naim had a really strong set.
Kevin Hart
Even Charlamagne Tha God said he was laughing along with Hinchcliffe's jokes until the George Floyd comnent was made. Kevin Hart made the argument that to take one comedian to task for one joke would be to put every possibly offensive joke under a microscope, namechecking Pete Davidson, who voiced a few controversial jokes of his own. According to Hart:
Like, would I tell those jokes? No. But do I get why they're being told? Yes. Like, I'm not looking at Pete crazy. I'm not looking at Tony crazy. That's what I know what you're going to do. I know your style of comedy.
For any viewers who may not have been aware of how pointed Tony Hinchcliffe's comedy can be, he set a precedence by first making a dispute-starting joke about Floyd during the Tom Brady Roast. Breakfast Club co-host Loren LaRosa shared that she interviewed George Floyd's brother Terren Floyd about the Roast. She said he felt Kevin should have stepped up to either shut Hinchcliffe's joke down, or to have an equally hardcore response as retaliation.
Hart appeared somewhat bamboozled by that criticism, not understanding what he was expected to do during a live production where he was the celebrated subject. He also addressed that those angered by the joke don't need to stay mad about. As he said:
I don't get affected by the attempt of humor. I get it. . . . Tony told a joke. It wasn't a tasteful joke to us. We didn't like it. Okay. ‘Hey man, f--k that joke.’ We move on. I don't understand why we stand on the hill and it becomes like this this big thing of like, "Oh man, the motherf--kers, they do this and they they're attacking the culture.’ It doesn't have to be that.
Hart put something of a bow on his thoughts with the following statement that attempts to extract his presence from any negative-skewing conversations about the joke. (Even though the conversation did continue.) In Hart's words:
It literally is either you're a fan of this level of content or you're not. And if you're not a fan, then you don't watch it. So, my my last my last note for all attached to this is very simple. Okay? Whatever the headlines or whatever the dialogue is, my rebuttal is simplicity. Remove me from it. I didn't say it. If you are upset that the night went on, that's a different conversation. It's nothing I could do. It's a production.
To be fair, Tom Brady did get offended by all the jokes made at his children's expense, and expressed a regret over having committed to the special. But he certainly went back to that stage and read jokes off the teleprompter at Hart's expense, so it would seem that he was able to get past his anger.
It doesn't look like any other Roasts will be among Netflix's 2026 movies and shows that are on the way, but it doesn't look like viewers are ready to stop talking about this one anyway. But why weren't more people talking about that strangely timed Kevin Hart joke on American Dad from the same night as the Roast?
