A recent joke about George Floyd may not have been to comedian Kevin Hart’s liking, but he is defending the comic who said it.
The joke was delivered at Netflix’s “Roast of Kevin Hart” earlier this month.
Hart said he didn’t like the joke from Tony Hinchcliffe, but he he understands why Hinchcliffe told it given the event — a roast.
“The George Floyd joke, it wasn’t a tasteful joke to our culture, to our audience, but … if you’re watching the roast, you get why they’re doing it,” Hart said on “The Breakfast Club.” “You get why the racial humor is on the table. I wasn’t shocked — that’s what they do! Go look at the Tom Brady [roast]. It happens every year when they do a roast.”
“The black community is so proud of you,” Hinchcliffe said to Hart at the roadt. “… Right now, George Floyd is looking up at us all laughing so hard he can’t breathe.”
“People are talking about that joke,” Hart said. “Talk about the set! Tony Hinchcliffe arguably had the best set, or one of the best sets.”
“I’m going to appreciate humor,” Hart continued. “I don’t get affected by the attempt of humor. I get it.”
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Hart also said he was not sure what people wanted him to do.
“What is it that you expect … to take a live production and stand up and fight Tony, or have a reaction? … Tony told a joke, it wasn’t a tasteful joke to us. We didn’t like it. OK, ‘Hey man, f*ck that joke!’ We move on.”
“It literally is, either you’re a fan of this level of content, or you’re not,” he said. “And if you’re not a fan, then you don’t watch it.”
In 2018, Hart was picked to host the Oscars, but was threatened to be dropped if he didn’t apologize over past jokes that some deemed homophobic.
Though he did ultimately offer a public apology, Hart initially refused to apologize and said he had already addressed the old jokes in the past.
“So, I just got a call from the Academy, and that call basically said, ‘Kevin, apologize for your tweets of old or we’re gonna have to move on and find another host,’” he recalled at the time. “I chose to pass. I passed on the apology.”
“The reason why I passed is because I’ve addressed this several times,” he said. “This is not the first time this has come up. I’ve addressed it. I’ve spoken on it. I’ve said where the rights and wrongs were. I’ve said who I am now versus who I was then. I’ve done it. I’m not gonna continue to go back and tap into the days of old when I’ve moved on and I’m in a completely different space in my life.
“You live and you learn and you grow and you mature,” he added. “I’m in a space where all I can do is be better as a human being.”
Hart later said that he was sorry that he “hurt people.”
He did not host the Oscars because he did not want to be a “distraction.”
