For more than two decades, the celebrity roasts that aired on Comedy Central had a reputation for their no-holds-barred attitude. Jokes about the most offensive subjects imaginable were seemingly fair game, from Jackass star Ryan Dunn’s death to Pete Davidson’s father being killed during 9/11. That said, as surprising as it may sound, there were actually some lines that the showrunners thought went a little too far over the years. Here are a few that never made it into the final broadcasts.
4. LENNY CLARKE ON BILL HICKS
At the Denis Leary roast in 2003, Lenny Clarke joked that Bill Hicks left a carton of cigarettes for Leary backstage with a note that said, “Wish I had gotten these to you sooner.” Leary had long been accused of lifting his pro-smoking stage persona from Hicks, who died from cancer years earlier. The line was removed before the show made it to air.
3. STEVE-O ON HIS FELLOW ROASTERS
During Charlie Sheen’s 2011 roast, Steve-O poked fun at the rest of the people on the dais by saying, “The last time this many nobodies got roasted, at least the band Great White was playing.” The joke was in reference to the Station nightclub fire that killed 100 people in Rhode Island back in 2003. Comedy Central removed that portion of Steve-O’s set after receiving complaints.
2. JEFF ROSS ON SETH GREEN
A month after James Holmes killed 12 people and injured 70 others at a screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Colorado in 2012, Jeff Ross compared Seth Green to the red-haired mass murderer at Roseanne Barr’s Comedy Central roast. “Seth, you haven’t gotten this much attention since you shot all those people in Aurora,” Ross quipped, in a segment that ended up getting removed. “You’re actually not like James Holmes. He was doing things in a theater that people remember.”
1. JEFF ROSS ON PAUL WALKER
Justin Bieber’s 2015 roast also featured a Ross joke that Comedy Central deemed too hot for TV. This time, Ross made a crack about Paul Walker, who died in a car accident a couple of years prior. That night, Walker’s 2 Fast 2 Furious co-star Ludacris was on the dais. “‘Move bitch, get out of the way!’ is what Paul Walker should’ve told that tree,” the Roastmaster General began, before asking the crowd, “Too soon? Too fast? Too furious?”
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