Michael Che pulled out of, calls out Kevin Hart roast

It sounds like Che was glad he did, however. In an Instagram post last night, the Weekend Update co-host called out the white writers behind the roast, writing, “White guys and Black people joke different. 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.” In another post, he wrote “‘Let’s do a roast celebrating the career of the most successful Black comic in the last 10 years.’ ‘I love that! Who should we get to write it?'” Che then shared a photo of five of the white writers (Nick Mullen, J.P. McDade, Mike Lawrence, Dan St. Germain and Zac Amico, per Variety) and wrote in the following slide, “C’monnnnnnnnn… that’s not funny?”

Variety does note that there were 17 credited writers on the special, some of whom are Black. Still, some of the jokes included in the telecast have reasonably rubbed some people the wrong way, including a joke from Hinchcliffe suggesting that George Floyd was in Hell. (Yes, the same Hinchcliffe who opened a Donald Trump rally at Madison Square Garden just days before the 2024 election with a collection of racist jokes was invited to a major Netflix event.) Shane Gillis also made a joke about Hart’s height that invoked lynching.