Celebrity roasts were built as tributes, not grudges. What started at the Friars Club in 1950 as showbiz members skewering one another in public later turned into a TV ritual through Dean Martin’s variety show in 1973, then a pop-culture machine on Comedy Central. But the latest chapter, a live Netflix roast of Kevin Hart hosted by Shane Gillis, showed how far the format has drifted from affectionate insult and into something meaner.
The Hart roast was the main event at the Netflix Is a Joke Festival and put Pete Davidson, Sheryl Underwood, Katt Williams, Draymond Green, Tony Hinchliffe, Chelsea Handler and Dwayne Johnson on the dais. It also generated more online chatter than Netflix’s earlier Roast of Tom Brady, which aired in 2024, was hosted by Kevin Hart and later earned an Emmy nomination. Brady’s special leaned heavily on jokes about him neglecting his family and on repeated allusions to Gisele allegedly cheating on him with her jiu-jitsu instructor.
The modern roast has always depended on a tricky bargain: the insult lands because everyone in the room is supposed to understand it is still a form of praise. That formula reached a peak in 2003, when Jeff Garlin led a raunchy tribute to Denis Leary that became the most-watched show in Comedy Central history. Comedy Central eventually stepped away from the business in 2019 after an Alec Baldwin roast hosted by Sean Hayes, and Netflix moved in with The Jonas Brothers Family Roast in 2021 before returning with Brady and then Hart.
What changed most in the Hart special was not the volume of the jokes but the mood around them. The roast featured recurring nastiness between Hinchliffe, Handler and Gillis, and the source said that friction clearly came from opposing political beliefs. In one assessment, the event “didn’t feel like anyone was having fun or even cared about Hart.” Another said it “felt like everyone came to collect a check and be as mean as possible to one another, a recipe that, for the viewer, has its ups and downs.”
That reaction matters because roasts still work only when the target seems in on the joke and the crowd seems to be sharing the joke with them. Brady’s special proved Netflix could turn the format into a major streaming event. Hart’s roast showed the risk of pushing the same idea harder, louder and in real time: once the room stops feeling playful, the tribute part of the roast disappears, and what is left is just people taking turns trying to draw blood.
