Chelsea Handler denounced the lynching joke Shane Gillis made at “The Roast of Kevin Hart,” slamming it as “gross” and a “worse” topic than rape.
The “Chelsea Lately” alum, who participated in her first major high-profile comedy roast on Netflix earlier this month, sounded off on Gillis and Tony Hinchcliffe’s material on Deon Cole’s Wednesday episode of “Funny Knowing You.” Per Handler, she had low expectations for her male peers, calling out their “racist” and “sexist” reputations.
While Handler shared that she didn’t take issue with the men on the dais going after her age and sexual history, defending, “I’m rich, I’m famous and I’m hot,” she did have a problem with the racially charged material.
“I mean it was ick. It was gross,” she said. “I don’t find those jokes to be funny. Jokes about lynching Black people. Like, lynching is not a joke. That’s worse than rape.”
She continued: “Like, you’re not joking about rape, are you? Are you saying, ‘I’m going to go rape you?’ You know you can’t do that, but you can say lynching? … People are like, ‘It’s a roast. You go for it.’ I’m like, you can go for it without being gross.”
Gillis hosted last week’s “The Roast of Kevin Hart,” during which he poked fun at Hart’s height by suggesting that “they’re gonna have to lynch him from a bonsai tree.” Gillis has since expressed regret over the controversial quip, stating he “could’ve done without it.”
Handler also took issue with Hinchcliffe’s joke about the suicide of Sheryl Underwood’s husband, sharing, “If she says she’s fine with that, she’s fine with that. I wasn’t fine with that. I thought that was disgusting, too.”
“But there was so much disgustingness that I knew it was going to be such a like, gross vibe,” she added. “Then I would be able to elevate it no problem. And that’s what I went to do. I was like, ‘All right, well, I’ll pick it up because they’re going to try and bring it down.’ And Kevin didn’t deserve that. He deserved like, an elevated roast.”
Watch her comments above.
“The Roast of Kevin Hart” is available to stream on Netflix.
