Michael Che Quit Kevin Hart Roast, Then Called Out Its White Writers

Michael Che was supposed to be on that dais. The Saturday Night Live star was originally booked to perform at Netflix’s Roast of Kevin Hart, which streamed live on May 6 from the Kia Forum in Los Angeles — but he pulled out before the show due to scheduling conflicts with SNL, according to two sources involved in the production. He wasn’t alone, either. The lineup apparently went through significant reshuffling in the lead-up, with several last-minute additions and dropouts along the way.

But Che didn’t just quietly bow out. Days after the special aired, he took to Instagram to make his feelings about the show very clear.

“White guys and Black people joke different,” he wrote. “Black guy roast like, ‘look at this n– – shoes!’ White roasts are like, ‘Slavery, math, slain teens, sex crimes, slurs, family secrets.’ White guys don’t give a fuck about they shoes.”

It didn’t take much reading between the lines to figure out what he was referring to. Host Shane Gillis made jokes about Hart’s height that invoked slavery and lynching — the lynching quip, Gillis admitted, required “three weeks of deliberation.” Tony Hinchcliffe went further, delivering a George Floyd joke that drew immediate backlash online. Jeff Ross, Dwayne Johnson, Gillis, and others mocked Hart’s late father’s addiction to crack cocaine. Pete Davidson and Hinchcliffe both landed jokes that referenced — without saying — the N-word. And multiple comics, including Katt Williams, cracked jokes about Hart once attending a Diddy party.

“Nothing was off limits,” Ross told Variety the day after the live telecast.

Che’s Real Target: The Writers Room

The Instagram posts didn’t stop at the jokes themselves. In a second slide, Che went after the people writing them.

“Let’s 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?” The next image: a photo of five joke writers hired by Gillis — Nick Mullen, J.P. McDade, Mike Lawrence, Dan St. Germain, and Zac Amico. All five are white.

“C’monnnnnnnnn… that’s not funny?” Che added.

McDade seemed to take it in stride, resharing Che’s post — but only the photo, not the caption. “Don’t swipe,” he wrote.

It’s worth putting Che’s call-out in context, though. The full roast had 17 credited writers, and several of them are Black. The five men Che highlighted were specifically part of Gillis’s personal writing team, not the entire production. Other performers, like Chelsea Handler, brought their own writers — Handler even posted a photo with hers and tagged them by name. Comedian Madison Sinclair, who performed in the special, shared some of her favorite unused roast jokes after the fact.

Sinclair’s set also became notable for a different reason: she compared Hinchcliffe to Melania Trump — a line that referenced his appearance at Donald Trump’s 2024 Madison Square Garden campaign rally. That joke made it into the live broadcast but was quietly removed from the version now streaming on Netflix.

Meanwhile, Hart himself didn’t sit quietly in the hot seat. During his response set, he addressed host Shane Gillis directly and took a shot at the long-running Hulk Hogan racism controversy — a moment that stood out in a night full of charged material.

The special also featured Tom Brady, Pete Davidson, Regina Hall, Usher, Sheryl Underwood, Draymond Green, and a surprise appearance from Dwayne Johnson, who traded barbs with several people on stage. The whole thing was a follow-up to Netflix’s first roast in 2024, which put Brady in the hot seat with Hart hosting — that special earned an Emmy nomination for live variety special.

As for what comes next in the franchise, executive producer Jeff Ross is already thinking big. “A pop star or a rock star would be great. A rapper would be great,” he teased, floating names like Drake and Stevie Wonder. Interestingly, the Hart roast spot was itself a second choice — Paul McCartney was approached first and turned it down. “To me, that would be a fantasy roast,” Ross said. “Paul McCartney doesn’t need anything, but a Paul McCartney roast would be good for the world.” Will Smith’s name was also reportedly thrown around at one point.

Netflix and Che’s management had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication. But Che’s posts are still up — and the conversation they started isn’t going anywhere.