Netflix’s The Roast of Kevin Hart delivered exactly what audiences expected Sunday night at the Kia Forum: absolute chaos, celebrity drive-bys, uncomfortable laughter, and enough career-ending material to keep publicists awake until Thursday.
The three-hour live event turned Kevin Hart into comedy roadkill as a rotating lineup of comics, athletes, actors and musicians took turns torching his height, filmography, family, and ego. Surprise appearances from Tom Brady, Dwayne Johnson and Katt Williams helped elevate the roast from standard insult-comedy into something closer to a televised hostage situation with punchlines.
Hosted by Shane Gillis, the night wasted no time going nuclear. Gillis opened by joking that Netflix had chosen him to host a “celebration of Black excellence” before unloading on Hart’s height with lines like, “When you see Kevin stand next to his Black friends, he looks like a period at the end of a sentence.” He later added, “Kevin is so short, you’d have to lynch him from a bonsai tree,” a joke so insane even Hart had to stand up laughing and shake Gillis’ hand afterward.
But the evening’s most uncomfortable moment may have come during Gillis’ introduction of Chelsea Handler. Gillis referred to Handler as a “Zionist,” joked about abortions, Jeffrey Epstein, and Benihana grills, and Handler looked noticeably irritated before firing back once she hit the mic.
She corrected Gillis on the difference between Judaism and Zionism, mocked his anti-Asian controversy by comparing him to a “steamed dumpling,” and later roasted both Gillis and Tony Hinchcliffe by saying, “Usually on Sunday nights, you just burn a cross on someone’s lawn. Tonight you get to roast a whole Black guy.”
Then came Brady.
Two years after Hart hosted Netflix’s roast of the NFL legend, Brady showed up looking like a man who had spent 24 straight months thinking about revenge. He immediately attacked Hart’s career resume: “I won seven Super Bowls. Kevin has made two Ride Along movies.” Then he looked at the celebrity panel and asked, “Who are these people and how did they get here? I thought they shut down Spirit Airlines.”
Brady also took aim at Hart’s wife Eniko after Hart previously joked about Brady’s family during the 2024 roast. “I’m too classy to go after your beautiful wife,” Brady teased before pausing. “Or am I? What’s up, girl?” Hart instantly shouted, “Cut it out!” from his chair.
Then, in a full-blown arena spectacle complete with lasers, pyro, and enough smoke to summon an Avengers sequel, the night’s biggest surprise guest finally emerged: Dwayne Johnson. The crowd exploded as “The Rock” stormed the stage late in the roast, instantly turning an already unhinged night into something even bigger, louder, and more ridiculously over-the-top.
Leaning fully into the insanity, Johnson delivered a bombastic set loaded with savage shots at Hart, the panel, and basically anyone sitting within splash range.
Meanwhile, Katt Williams delivered one of the night’s sharpest sets despite years of public tension with Hart. Williams joked that before seeing his act, Hart was “a 6-foot-3 white man,” claimed Netflix had to invite Hart’s enemies because Hart lacked enough star power on his own, and said the one word Hart never says in his act is “No.” He also roasted Hart over the Diddy rumors with: “Kevin was at a bunch of Diddy parties. But in his defense, it was only because Diddy thought Kevin was 10.”
In a genuinely unexpected twist, Hart interrupted the set to publicly bury the hatchet with Williams after years of feuding. The two embraced onstage before Hart later undercut the sincerity by joking it was “some of the best acting” of his career. Moments later, Hart confirmed the reconciliation was real. Roast logic.
One of the night’s biggest breakout performances came from Sheryl Underwood, who brought the house down with a fearless, wildly unfiltered set that earned a standing ovation. Mixing raunchy crowd work, celebrity hit jobs, and escalating punchlines that somehow kept getting more outrageous, Underwood delivered the kind of set that felt less like a roast and more like a controlled detonation.
Other standout burns included:
• Jeff Ross: “The world fell in love with you when Michael Jackson dangled you over that balcony.”
• Pete Davidson asking: “What can you say about Kevin that hasn’t already been yelled out by a guy with Tourette’s at the BAFTAs?”
• Dwayne Johnson jokingly said that he got a life-size tattoo of Hart “on my privates.”
• Brady’s closing dagger: “Payback’s a bitch and so are you, Kevin Hart.”
By the end of the night, Hart survived what may have been Netflix’s messiest and most unpredictable roast yet. Which, honestly, is probably the highest compliment a roast can get anymore.
Yet beneath all the scorched-earth comedy, the night kept circling back to something oddly genuine. Nearly every roaster, no matter how ruthlessly they tore into Hart’s height, career, family, or ego, eventually pivoted toward acknowledging the massive impact he’s had on comedy and entertainment. Sheryl Underwood probably summed it up best when she told Hart, “We only roast who we love, and we truly love you.”
The Geek is a working screenwriter, director and screenwriting instructor.
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