Kanye Was in the Room When Pete Davidson Called Him a ‘Gay Nazi’

Pete Davidson did not come to The Roast of Kevin Hart to play it safe — and Kanye West had a front-row seat for all of it.

The Netflix special, filmed May 10 at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles as part of Netflix Is a Joke Fest and hosted by Shane Gillis, was exactly the kind of no-limits night the format promises. Davidson, 32, was among the comedians who took the stage, and when he did, he went straight for a familiar target. While roasting fellow comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, the SNL alum pivoted hard.

“Tony, nothing you say tonight will hurt my feelings,” Davidson said. “I was in a beef with Kanye, so I’ve taken shots from better gay Nazis.”

The line got huge laughs — including, reportedly, from Hinchcliffe himself. What nobody in that room may have realized in the moment: Ye was watching from the audience, seated alongside his wife Bianca Censori.

Stone-Faced but Present

Video obtained by TMZ shows Kanye from behind as Davidson delivered the joke. His reaction? Essentially nothing. No visible flinch, no laughter, no visible anger. Just Ye, sitting there, absorbing it.

He wasn’t completely unmoved all night, though. When Teyana Taylor — who famously starred in Ye’s iconic “Fade” video back in 2016 and has since become a Golden Globe-winning actress — surprised the crowd with a set, Kanye clapped for her. Taylor had said in a January interview with Vanity Fair that she wouldn’t be cutting Ye out of her life over his controversies, so the warmth there tracks. And when Dwayne Johnson stepped up to introduce Kevin Hart, Ye even cracked a smile.

The stone face was reserved specifically for Pete.

The History Behind the Punchline

For anyone who needs a refresher: Davidson and Ye’s feud ignited in late 2021 when Pete began dating Kim Kardashian. The nine-month relationship — which lasted until August 2022 — sent Kanye into a very public spiral. He went after Davidson relentlessly on social media, dubbed him “Skete,” and even appeared as an animated figure burying Davidson alive in the music video for “Eazy,” his 2022 collaboration with The Game — in which a claymation Davidson was kidnapped and buried. It was a lot.

Davidson’s “gay Nazi” line was also a direct callback to Ye’s spiral of antisemitic statements in 2022 and beyond, including a song called “Cousins” — later pulled from streaming — and a string of public comments that drew widespread condemnation. The fallout from those comments cost Ye major business partnerships and dominated headlines for months.

Hinchcliffe didn’t let Davidson off easy either. During his own set, the Kill Tony host landed his own Ye-adjacent shot at Davidson’s expense: “The closest Pete has come to greatness is when his d*** rubbed up against Kanye’s old c**,” Hinchcliffe said, as Davidson could be seen nodding along from his seat.

Ye’s Public Apology and What Came Before It

Davidson’s joke landed in the context of a much bigger, messier story. Earlier this year, Kanye published a full-page open letter in the Wall Street Journal, offering what amounted to his most direct public reckoning yet with his behavior.

“One of the difficult aspects of having bipolar type-1 are the disconnected moments — many of which I still cannot recall — that led to poor judgment and reckless behavior that oftentimes feels like an out-of-body experience,” he wrote. “I regret and am deeply mortified by my actions in that state, and am committed to accountability, treatment, and meaningful change. It does not excuse what I did though. I am not a Nazi or an antisemite. I love Jewish people.”

West said he had experienced a four-month manic episode that included “psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behavior” and that it “ruined” his life. He credited Bianca Censori — the same woman sitting beside him at the Hart roast — as the reason he finally sought help. “When you go into a manic episode, you are ill at that point,” he wrote. “When you are not in an episode, you are completely ‘normal.’ And that’s when the wreckage from the illness hits the hardest.”

The roast itself was a massive night beyond just the Ye subplot. Katt Williams showed up for a surprise appearance, squashed his long-running beef with Hart, and — because he’s Katt Williams — couldn’t resist slipping in some Diddy jokes while he was at it. The Greatest Roast of All Time: Kevin Hart is now streaming on Netflix, joining The Roast of Tom Brady in the platform’s growing library of celebrity roast specials.

As for Kanye? He hasn’t publicly acknowledged the roast, Davidson’s joke, or any of it. Whether that changes — well, anyone who followed the “Skete” era knows better than to assume the silence will last forever.