Sheryl Underwood said people should rightfully be upset by Tony Hinchcliffe and Shane Gillis’ Kevin Hart roast jokes that were centered on the late George Floyd and race.
Underwood talked to “Entertainment Tonight” Thursday about Netflix’s controversial “The Roast of Kevin Hart,” which some criticized as crossing the line into poor taste — particularly Hinchcliffe joking about Floyd, and Gillis joking about “lynching” Hart.
Hinchcliffe said during the roast, “Right now George Floyd is looking at us all and laughing so hard that he can’t breathe.”
As for Gillis, while poking fun at Hart’s height, he cracked, “Kevin’s so short they’re going to have to lynch him from a bonsai tree.”
Underwood reflected, “I think people should be upset, like the George Floyd jokes, the bonsai tree jokes, things like that.”
She said of the comedians, “I want to get to know what is in your brain that makes you think this is OK?”
“I told Tony Hinchcliffe personally, ‘You gotta deal with the Floyd family — and they got hands,’” she added. “You’re talking about someone’s relative. And not that the joke wasn’t well written, but would you say that this generation of roasting and comics, they do stuff that most people would think are in poor taste but it still makes you laugh.”
During the roast, Hinchcliffe and Gillis also made jokes about Underwood’s late husband, who committed suicide. The former “The Talk” host and her husband — whose name she’s never revealed — were married for three years when he took his own life in 1990.
Although Underwood was shown laughing in the audience at the time, she told ET that the jokes were “in poor taste.” She also said both comedians called her beforehand to tell her that they were going to talk about her late husband.
“I got a chance to talk to Tony Hinchcliffe and he told me where he was going, and then Shane Gillis called me and we talked about it,” she shared. “They came with respect but I didn’t know exactly what they were gonna say.”
She said of her response to them, “Like when they talked to me about how they were coming at me, I said, ‘They better be funny.’”
Chelsea Handler — who’s good friends with Hart and took part in the roast — blasted Hinchcliffe and Gillison Wednesday’s episode of “Deon Cole’s Funny Knowing You” podcast, calling them “racists, bigots, and sexist.”
“I don’t find those jokes funny,” she said. “Lynching Black people is not a joke. It’s worse than rape.”
“There was so much disgustingness, I knew it was gonna be a gross vibe,” she added of the roast.
But Gillis hit back through his rep, telling Page Six in a statement, “This is a big moment for Chelsea. I am glad she’s capitalizing. Good for her.”
“We’re all rooting for her, ” the statement continued. “Anyway come see me July 17th at the football stadium in Philly.”
“Saturday Night Live” star Michael Che — who reportedly pulled out of Hart’s roast — has also publicly criticized the event on his Instagram Stories.
“‘lets do a roast celebrating the career of the most successful black comic in the last 10 years,’” he wrote. “‘i love that! who should we get to write it?’”
On the next slide, Che shared an image of five white men who were part of Gillis’ writing crew.
He also posted, “white guys and black people joke different. black guys roast like, ‘look at this n–a shoes!’ white roasts are like, ‘slavery, math, slain teens, sex crimes, slurs, family secrets.’”
The post Sheryl Underwood reveals which of Tony Hinchcliffe and Shane Gillis’ Kevin Hart roast jokes went too far appeared first on Page Six.
