Nikki Glaser has finally weighed in on Netflix’s controversial Roast of Kevin Hart, shading MAGA-coded comedians for their “racist” jokes.
Glaser said that the inherent problem of the jokes was not necessarily the material, but the comedians’ inability to make these quips “palatable.” She suggested that some of these jokes came out of “nowhere.”
“I honestly had a great time,” Glaser, 41, told Entertainment Tonight when asked if she watched the roast, “And you know, there was some stuff that I didn’t love, and there was other stuff that I thought was great.”
“I’ve talked to every comedian about it. Everyone’s talking about it, and that’s the good thing, you know, like Netflix did a good job of making something that, and the thing about like, I don’t believe that jokes can’t be made that are racist jokes,” she continued.
“Ironically racist jokes–the problem is not that it’s racist. It’s like sometimes you’ve got to find a way, if you really want to do a joke, you’ve got to find a way to make it make sense. You can’t just like say it, and it’s out of nowhere...” Glaser explained.
The comedian revealed that she and her fellow comedian buddies have been discussing the roast intensely on group chats.
Glaser’s comments come as comedians Tony Hinchcliffe and Shane Gillis are facing scrutiny for some of their remarks during the roast, which aired on May 10.
Hinchcliffe, 41, is under fire for making a joke about the late George Floyd, a Black man who was publicly murdered by a white police officer in 2020. At the Netflix roast, Hinchcliffe told Hart, 46, “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 comedian, Hart, and Netflix have faced intense backlash from the public and Floyd’s family. A growing petition is asking for Netflix and Hart to pay “reparations” for Hinchcliffe’s “racist and cruel joke.”
Gillis also attracted controversy after joking about lynching. Addressing Hart’s height, Gillis, 38, said, “They’re gonna have to lynch him from a bonsai tree.”
Both comedians have faced controversy for racist jokes in the past. Hinchcliffe notoriously performed at Donald Trump’s 2024 Madison Square Garden Rally, where he made a widely-condemned joke about Puerto Ricans. Gillis, meanwhile, was fired from a brief stint on Saturday Night Live in 2019, after the comedian used racial slurs against Asians on his podcast.
Chelsea Handler performed alongside Gillis and Hinchcliffe at the roast, but called out the comedians during her segment and afterward. The 51-year-old comedian and actress tore into them during an appearance Deon Cole’s Funny Knowing You Podcast, dubbing both Gillis and Hinchcliffe “racist,” “sexist,” and “bigots.”
“I mean, it was ick,” Handler said. “It was gross. I don’t find those jokes to be funny. Jokes about lynching black people… lynching is not a joke.”
Glaser echoed this sentiment while speaking to Entertainment Tonight.
“I think that’s what people are having a problem with...not like the nature of the jokes, because I do love roasts, how anything can be said, and all bets are off, but you know, that’s not so easy. You have to make it palatable,” she said.
Glaser, who shot to comedic fame after her starry performance at the infamous 2024 Roast of Tom Brady, didn’t perform at this year’s roast of Hart. The two-time Golden Globes host revealed in January that she refused to participate because of scheduling conflicts.
“I loved watching it,” she told ET. “I was glad to be watching it, not doing it, because it’s just like it’s nerve-wracking, and it’s like it really sends your nervous system through a lot of trauma to do one of those."
