{"id":606136,"date":"2026-05-27T06:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T06:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/606136\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T06:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T06:46:08","slug":"kevin-hart-responds-to-roast-of-kevin-hart-criticisms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/606136\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Hart responds to Roast Of Kevin Hart criticisms"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the two weeks since Netflix aired\u00a0The Roast Of Kevin Hart, a lot of comedians involved, or nearly involved, in the deliberately boundary-pushing comedy special have spoken up. Chelsea Handler<\/a>, Shane Gillis<\/a>, and Tony Hinchcliffe<\/a> have fired back and forth at each other over Gillis\u2019 and Hinchcliffe\u2019s jokes\u2014which included a jab from Gillis about lynchings, and one from Hinchcliffe about the 2020 murder of George Floyd\u2014while Michael Che criticized the special from a distance<\/a>, after pulling out over Saturday Night Live\u00a0scheduling issues. Now, the man of the hour himself has finally stepped forward to speak to the discourse surrounding the special, as Kevin Hart gave an interview today in which he asked, essentially, why the fuck anyone thinks Kevin Hart should have to speak to the discourse surrounding The Roast Of Kevin Hart.<\/p>\n

\ufeff<\/p>\n

There was, admittedly, a bit more to it than that, as Hart showed up on The Breakfast Club\u00a0this morning to get a fairly diligent grilling from co-hosts Charlamagne Tha God and Loren LoRosa about how quiet he\u2019s been in the aftermath of the production. Hart\u2014who was one of several celebrities who appeared at Floyd\u2019s memorial service back in 2020, calling for police reform\u2014noted that Hinchcliffe\u2019s joke mocking Floyd\u2019s last words \u201cwasn\u2019t a tasteful joke to our culture, to our audience.\u201d But also, he went on, that same audience had tuned in to a comedy roast featuring the Kill Tony\u00a0guy, so what did they expect to hear? The actor and comedian (who lauded Hinchcliffe for having \u201carguably\u2026the best set or one of the best sets\u201d of the night) asserted that roasts are built around transgressive material, including jokes he, personally, doesn\u2019t like, so if you don\u2019t like them, don\u2019t watch.<\/p>\n

More importantly, though, Kevin Hart would like to remind you that none of this is his business (even if, in a strictly financial sense, it absolutely was his business). Asked about an interview in which Floyd\u2019s brother expressed his disappointment that Hart hadn\u2019t vocalized some kind of protest in response to Hinchcliffe\u2019s joke, Hart seemed baffled at the idea he might disrupt \u201cthe production\u201d in order to lodge a protest. Hart, who\u2019s credited as an executive producer on the special, which prominently featured his name and face in its promotion, boiled his entire response down to \u201csimplicity. Remove me from it\u2014I didn\u2019t say it,\u201d so if you want to be mad, be mad at Hinchcliffe or Gillis. He also seems to have a genuine emotional reaction to the idea he should\u00a0be obligated to say something publicly, noting that he privately called former NBA player Stephen Jackson, a childhood friend of Floyd\u2019s, to clear the air with him about the special in the immediate aftermath\u2014but bristled at the idea that such a conversation should be part of a public discourse. \u201cPeople just want to know you care,\u201d Charlamagne asserts, which got the sharpest pushback from Hart of the whole conversation: \u201cI don\u2019t fucking need to prove to people that I give a fuck. No! If you open that door, then that\u2019s the door people expect all the\u2026 Why the fuck do I need to do that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Hart positions himself at the center of a sort of responsibility-abnegating paradox: Sure, he helped pick Hinchcliffe to perform at his roast, on the strength of his success at the 2024 Roast Of Tom Brady. But that doesn\u2019t make him, either as an executive producer or the face of the event, responsible for Hinchcliffe\u2019s words\u2014or for reacting to them when they crossed any lines Hart himself might hold. \u201cThe job was to produce a successful roast,\u201d Hart concluded. \u201cWhich I did\u201d\u2014leaving the listener to infer what metrics are being used to measure Hart\u2019s particular definitions of \u201csuccess.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the two weeks since Netflix aired\u00a0The Roast Of Kevin Hart, a lot of comedians involved, or nearly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-606136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}