The event, which aired on Netflix, featured jokes about Sheryl Underwood’s late husband, Hart’s affairs and more. But Hinchcliffe’s joke about George Floyd “looking up” at Hart prompted immediate outcry on social media.
Comedian Lil Rel Howery has spent a time or two roasting someone, whether in his neighborhood, cutting his teeth in Chicago comedy or on stage for his specials. But after watching “The Roast of Kevin Hart,” Howery had time to address a few things he found of ill taste.
In a three-minute video uploaded to Instagram and reposted on other social platforms, Howery explained why he didn’t attend the roast or any of the “Netflix Is A Joke” events, as he was filming a movie. After circling back and taking in the roast, he saluted comedians and individuals he found to have done their job like Regina Hall, Katt Williams and Hart himself.
However, one of the more distasteful roast jokes rubbed Howery the wrong way.
“What I am annoyed by, and I’m just keeping it one hundred y’all… I don’t understand, it’s one thing to roast the people that’s there,” he began. “It’s one thing to roast the people who may be in the audience. Roasting someone No. 1 that’s dead, No. 2 that’s not there, No. 3 that the implications of why you shouldn’t joke about that … Tony Hinchcliffe’s joke about George Floyd didn’t make f-cking sense to me. It was no reason to bring George Floyd into this. It was just disgusting.”
He continued, “The audience was OK boo’ing Draymond Green every time his name was mentioned. Y’all could boo! But you don’t boo Tony Hinchcliffe right after that? I get it man, I’m OK not being part of this clique bullsh-t that’s going on in comedy. I 100 percent would have booed that muthaf-ka and probably walked out. That’s all I’m saying, y’all.”
Hinchcliffe’s joke had immediately drawn ire from fellow comedians like Loni Love and Melissa Fredricks, the wife of Kevin “KevOnStage” Fredericks, who argued that the “anti-Black” jokes told during the event weren’t funny. It also drew a swift response from Floyd’s family, who shared in a statement, “We are trying to rebuild things for our community and make things better in our community,” they continued before adding a slight but pointed jab of their own. “Let’s try to be a little bit more positive — and not sit up there doing colon inspections by white comedians.”
Howery contested that sometimes the general public could be “too sensitive” to certain matters, but he drew the line at Floyd, who died six years ago at the hands of a former Minneapolis police officer.
“Why can’t we just agree that bringing up George Floyd in the way he did it was f-cked up and not funny and not needed? It wasn’t even needed! I ain’t like that sh-t,” Howery concluded.
