• Tony Hinchcliffe made a joke about George Floyd during Netflix’s The Roast of Kevin Hart, drawing immediate backlash
• Lil Rel Howery posted a video calling the joke “disgusting” and questioning why the audience didn’t boo
• The Gianna and George Floyd Foundation condemned the moment, calling Hart’s condoning of it “sad for the culture”
• Tiffany Haddish, who was in the audience, says she missed the joke — and threw shade at critics who weren’t invited
• This is the second Netflix roast in a row where Hinchcliffe has made a joke at Floyd’s expense

Lil Rel Howery has something to say — and he said it directly, clearly, and without apology.

In a three-minute video posted to Instagram earlier this week, the comedian and Get Out actor sounded off on Tony Hinchcliffe’s joke about George Floyd during The Roast of Kevin Hart, which aired on Netflix on May 10. Howery wasn’t at the event — he was filming a movie and missed the “Netflix Is a Joke” festival entirely — but once he caught up with the roast, he had thoughts.

He opened by giving credit where it was due. Regina Hall, Katt Williams, and Hart himself all got shoutouts. But Hinchcliffe’s moment at the mic? A different story entirely.

“What I am annoyed by, and I’m just keeping it one hundred y’all… I don’t understand, it’s one thing to roast the people that’s there,” Howery said. “It’s one thing to roast the people who may be in the audience. Roasting someone No. 1 that’s dead, No. 2 that’s not there, No. 3 that the implications of why you shouldn’t joke about that… Tony Hinchcliffe’s joke about George Floyd didn’t make f-cking sense to me. It was no reason to bring George Floyd into this. It was just disgusting.”

The joke in question came near the end of Hinchcliffe’s set. Praising Hart’s success, he said: “The Black community is so proud of you. Right now, George Floyd is looking up at us all laughing so hard he can’t breathe.” Hart doubled over laughing. The audience, by most accounts, went along with it.

That audience reaction — or lack of the right one — is exactly what got under Howery’s skin.

“The audience was OK boo’ing Draymond Green every time his name was mentioned. Y’all could boo! But you don’t boo Tony Hinchcliffe right after that?” he said. “I get it man, I’m OK not being part of this clique bullsh-t that’s going on in comedy. I 100 percent would have booed that muthaf-ka and probably walked out. That’s all I’m saying, y’all.”

He acknowledged that people can be overly sensitive sometimes — but drew a hard line here. “Why can’t we just agree that bringing up George Floyd in the way he did it was f-cked up and not funny and not needed? It wasn’t even needed! I ain’t like that sh-t.”

Floyd’s Family Speaks Out — and the Hurt Is Real

The backlash didn’t stop with Howery. Travis Cains, a spokesman for The Gianna and George Floyd Foundation, told TMZ that Hart condoning the joke was “sad for the culture” — and that Floyd’s family and friends are flat-out appalled that Hinchcliffe was invited back to another Netflix roast at all.

This isn’t the first time Hinchcliffe has gone here. During The Roast of Tom Brady in 2024, he told Rob Gronkowski he “looked like the final boss in George Floyd the video game.” The pattern isn’t lost on Floyd’s family, who reportedly view Hinchcliffe as having a disturbing fixation on using Floyd as a punchline — and who describe him as a “racist comedian.”

In their official statement, the foundation didn’t mince words: “We are trying to rebuild things for our community and make things better in our community. Let’s try to be a little bit more positive — and not sit up there doing colon inspections by white comedians.”

The hurt extends well beyond the adults in the room. Floyd’s daughter Gianna was six years old when her father was killed in May 2020. She’s now 12 — and according to the foundation, she’s been bullied at school in part because platforms keep making her father’s death into a joke. That’s the part of this conversation that tends to get lost when people debate the abstract merits of roast comedy.

Activist Tamika Mallory also weighed in on Instagram, writing: “There is literally NOTHING funny about how George Floyd was murdered. Allowing that white man or any other man to stand up there and disrespect Us, while laughing, is disgusting. Part of the reason Black folks continue to face SEVERE attacks against our rights, is because some of us think everything is sh–s and giggles. It wasn’t funny AT ALL.”

Comedian Loni Love and Melissa Fredericks — wife of Kevin “KevOnStage” Fredericks — also publicly criticized the roast’s jokes as “anti-Black” and unfunny. On Threads, comedian Franchesca Ramsey offered a more measured but pointed take: “If your perspective as a comedian is ‘nothing is off limits,’ that means you accept that some jokes will offend people. People not liking racist jokes aren’t ‘ruining comedy.’ People are allowed to not like things.”

Tiffany Haddish Has a Different Take — and a Pointed Parting Shot

Not everyone in the comedy world is on the same page. Tiffany Haddish, who was in the audience at the Kia Forum that night, told TMZ she didn’t actually hear the Floyd joke because she had stepped away.

“It was so much fun,” she said of the roast overall. “I think it should have been shorter; the show was too long. I didn’t hear the George Floyd joke because I had to pee so bad. I was a glorified seat filler and I was tired.”

When the interviewer brought up the comedians who’d publicly criticized the show — including Loni Love — Haddish paused, then delivered a line that landed like a punchline of its own: “Is this all comedians saying it that wasn’t invited?” Then she walked off.

Sheryl Underwood, who was roasted herself during the event — including a joke about her late husband’s death by suicide, delivered by Hinchcliffe — chose to clap back on stage rather than show hurt. Her response to Hinchcliffe was sharp: “Question for the day is, who has had more Black d–k in this town? Me or Chelsea Handler? The answer is Tony Hinchcliffe.” Afterward, she told TMZ Live, “Sometimes political correctness does not fit in comedy. Freedom of speech is alive and well, and it’s alive on Netflix.”

Hart himself posted a video defending the spirit of the roast format. “That, my friends, is what the f–k a roast is supposed to be,” he said. “It’s goddamn hard-hitting, relentless jokes of no consequence. Leave the emotions and the feelings at the front f–king door.”

The roast also featured a genuinely surprising moment — Hart and longtime rival Katt Williams publicly burying their feud on stage — and the star-studded audience included Usher, Teyana Taylor, Venus and Serena Williams, and Jennifer Lopez. But in the days since, it’s Hinchcliffe’s 20 seconds at the mic that have overshadowed everything else.

Howery’s final word on it was simple and stayed with people: “Everything isn’t comedy.”

Gianna Floyd is 12 years old. She goes to school. And somewhere out there, people are still debating whether her father’s last words are good roast material.

The post Lil Rel Blasts Tony Hinchcliffe’s George Floyd Roast Joke appeared first on Cream.

• Tony Hinchcliffe made a George Floyd joke during Netflix’s Roast of Kevin Hart, drawing widespread backlash
• George Floyd’s family foundation is condemning the joke and blaming Kevin Hart for allowing it
• Gianna Floyd, now 12, is reportedly being bullied at school in the wake of the ongoing jokes
• Hinchcliffe has a long history of controversy, including a racial slur incident in 2021 and remarks about Puerto Rico at a Trump rally
• The roast also featured brutal jokes about Sheryl Underwood’s late husband’s suicide, sparking additional outrage

George Floyd’s family has had enough. After Tony Hinchcliffe took the stage at Netflix’s Roast of Kevin Hart and delivered a joke about Floyd’s death, the Gianna and George Floyd Foundation is speaking out — and they’re directing much of their anger squarely at Kevin Hart himself.

Hinchcliffe’s line during his set was blunt and ugly: “The Black community is so proud of you… right now George Floyd is looking up at us all laughing so hard he can’t breathe.” The audience laughed. So did Hart. And that’s what’s cutting deepest for the people who loved George Floyd.

Travis Cains, a spokesman for the Gianna and George Floyd Foundation, says Kevin condoning the joke is “sad for the culture.” The family and friends feel Hart should have told Hinchcliffe to stay off that topic entirely — and they’re baffled by what they see as Hinchcliffe’s apparent obsession with making George Floyd the punchline. They’re calling Hinchcliffe a “racist comedian” and asking how Hart would feel if it were one of his friends who had died.

The foundation made their broader message clear: “We are trying to rebuild things for our community and make things better in our community. Let’s try to be a little bit more positive and not sit up there doing colon inspections by white comedians.”

What makes this land even harder is that Floyd’s daughter, Gianna, is 12 years old now. She was only 6 when her father was killed. According to the foundation, she’s currently being bullied at school — and jokes like this don’t make that any easier.

On X, fans echoed the family’s frustration, criticizing Hart for fostering an environment where, in their view, that kind of humor was not just permitted but rewarded with laughter. The image of Hart laughing at the punchline has been circulating widely and has become a focal point of the backlash.

This Wasn’t Hinchcliffe’s First George Floyd Joke

This is actually the second time Hinchcliffe has gone to this well. At the 2024 Roast of Tom Brady, he joked that Rob Gronkowski “looked like the final boss in George Floyd the video game.” That one drew criticism too. The fact that he returned to the same subject two years later — this time with Hart’s roast as the platform — is what’s pushing Floyd’s family and supporters from frustrated to furious.

Hinchcliffe is no stranger to this territory. The dark insult comic got his start writing for Comedy Central’s roast series, penning jokes for the roasts of James Franco, Justin Bieber, and Rob Lowe. He built a following through his close friendship with Joe Rogan, opened for him numerous times, and eventually relocated to Austin in 2020 to be part of Rogan’s comedy community. He hosts the popular “Kill Tony” podcast and has released specials on Netflix and YouTube.

But his career has been defined as much by controversy as by his specials. In May 2021, video surfaced of Hinchcliffe using an anti-Asian slur against comedian Peng Dang, who had just opened for him at a show in Austin. He mocked Dang with Asian stereotypes and called audience members “race traitors” for laughing at Dang’s jokes. The video went viral, and Hinchcliffe was dropped from his agency and lost multiple brand deals.

His response at the time was defiant. “It was so dumbfounding to me because it was a joke, and my stance is that comedians should never apologize for a joke, should never stop working if everyone comes after them and should never slow down,” he later told Variety. “In fact, they should utilize anything that happens to them for more material.”

Three years after that, Hinchcliffe was tapped to perform at Donald Trump’s 2024 rally in New York City, where he called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” and made racist jokes about Latino, Black, Jewish, and Palestinian people. The Trump campaign distanced itself from the remarks. Hinchcliffe, again, did not apologize. “I love Puerto Ricans, they’re very smart people,” he said in a statement. “And I apologize to absolutely nobody.”

Despite all of it — or perhaps because of it — he was invited to roast Kevin Hart.

Hinchcliffe Also Targeted Sheryl Underwood’s Late Husband

The George Floyd joke wasn’t the only moment from the roast drawing sharp criticism. Hinchcliffe also mocked Sheryl Underwood’s late husband, who died by suicide in 1990, three years into their marriage. “Her husband committed suicide 3 years into the marriage,” Hinchcliffe said from the stage at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, California. “I’ve been sitting next to her for 2 hours and I have to ask: how did he last that long?”

The camera cut to Underwood, 62, laughing in the audience.

Roast host Shane Gillis also took aim at the tragedy multiple times during the show, joking about bridges and the Golden State Warriors logo before telling the crowd he had called Underwood the day before and that she had been enthusiastic about the bit. Underwood has spoken about her husband’s death publicly before — emotionally and with real vulnerability — telling her The Talk co-hosts in 2018: “You will never know. For people who think they know. You’ll never know if it’s clinical depression. You’ll never know if it’s financial stress.” She also revealed he left a note, saying, “what the note does to the person who is still alive is, it shows that the person who is no longer alive has now had the final word.”

Her laughter in the audience didn’t stop the backlash online, where many felt the jokes crossed a line regardless of her reaction.

For the Floyd family, none of this is abstract. Their foundation has been working to rebuild community and create something lasting in George’s name — for Gianna, for the people who loved him, for the culture that mourned him. A 12-year-old girl is going to school and getting bullied because comedians keep making her father the punchline. That’s the reality behind the joke.

The post George Floyd’s Family Slams Kevin Hart Over Roast Joke appeared first on Cream.