DL Hughley Slams Tony Hinchcliffe Over Kevin Hart Roast

DL Hughley has officially entered the conversation about the growing backlash storm surrounding Tony Hinchcliffe, and he’s not pulling punches. As outrage continues building over controversial material from The Roast of Kevin Hart, Hughley directly linked Hinchcliffe’s comedy style to the same political controversy that exploded after the comedian appeared at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally in 2024.

“I find it ironic that a comedian who appeared at a Nazi rally for Trump a couple of years ago and told a very incendiary joke would end up on one that was in Jumanji,” Hughley said during a recent discussion on the Forgotten Kings podcast.

He later questioned the selective outrage surrounding offensive comedy, saying, “You are entitled to tell a joke. But it cannot be just jokes when the very audiences that support that kind of comedy got upset when someone said anything about Charlie Kirk.”

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Hughley also argued that debates around “free speech” in comedy often become “a one-sided street.”

The latest criticism adds to an already chaotic week for Netflix’s Kevin Hart roast, which was supposed to be remembered for Hart and Katt Williams publicly ending their years-long feud.

Instead, much of the conversation shifted toward Hinchcliffe’s jokes about George Floyd and repeated jokes aimed at Sheryl Underwood’s late husband, who died by suicide in 1990.

During the roast, Hinchcliffe joked, “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.”

Floyd’s family later condemned the joke publicly, with family representatives criticizing Hart for allowing the material to remain in the final Netflix broadcast.

At another point in the roast, Hinchcliffe said of Underwood’s husband, “I’ve been sitting next to her for two hours, and I have to ask: how did he last that long?”

Outside the comedy world, Pastor Jamal Bryant also blasted the special after clips from the roast went viral online. “The Kevin Hart roast wasn’t comedy it was disrespect dressed as jokes,” Bryant wrote on Threads. “In this climate for it to go unchecked is to give consent.”

The controversy also reopened scrutiny around Hinchcliffe’s 2024 appearance at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, where he referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”

The joke sparked immediate backlash from both political parties, Latino celebrities, and even Trump campaign officials, who publicly distanced themselves from the comedian afterward.

Hinchcliffe later doubled down on the appearance, saying he hoped Trump approved of the set.