Chelsea Handler and others have also voiced complaints.

Wanda Sykes calls out ‘lazy writing’ and sexist jokes in Kevin Hart roast she passed up

Chelsea Handler and others have also voiced complaints.

By Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt

Raechal Shewfelt is a writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2024. Her work has previously appeared on Yahoo and in American *Journalism Review* and *The Shreveport Times*.

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June 11, 2026 7:49 p.m. ET

Wanda Sykes in 2024 in Beverly Hills, and Kevin Hart in Inglewood, Calif., on May 10. Credit:

Dan Doperalski/Golden Globes 2024/Golden Globes 2024 via Getty; Kevin Winter/Getty

- Wanda Sykes says she declined to be part of Kevin Hart's roast last month.

- The comedian explains that, in her view, the event featured what felt like 'recycled' jokes that were sexist and racist.

- Sykes isn't the only one to call out the roast.

Wanda Sykes considers herself lucky to have opted out of fellow comedian Kevin Hart's recent roast.

"Just lazy, lazy writing," Sykes said Thursday on Vulture's *Good One* podcast when asked what had gone wrong during last month's Netflix special *The Roast of Kevin Hart*. "But I thought the same thing with the [2024 Tom] Brady roast too. Seems like the roasts, they're just recycled, you know, sexist, racist, gay jokes. Like, come on."

*The Upshaws *star said that Hart, who's a friend, had wanted her to participate.

"Kevin called me before it was announced, and I said, 'No!,'" Sykes explained. "He said, ‘Come on, Wanda. Come on, it’ll be good. It’ll be good for your special. You’ve got a special coming out.’ I was like, ‘Kevin, you know I love you, man.’ He goes, ‘I know. I know it’s not your thing. I know it's not your thing.' He’s like, 'You’ll just come in, do your thing, get out of there.'"

In answer to the question of whether she had consumed enough of the special to know if she made the right choice, Sykes was clear.

Kevin Hart speaks at his roast at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif., on May 10.

Kevin Mazur/Getty

"I consumed enough to go, 'Thank god,'" she said candidly. Sykes "went to the [WNBA's Los Angeles] Sparks game instead."

** has reached out to a rep for Hart.

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The roast was hosted by Shane Gillis and a lineup of Chelsea Handler, Pete Davidson, Sheryl Underwood, Jeff Ross, Katt Williams, Tony Hinchcliffe, and more. Guests including Brady, Venus and Serena Williams, and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson appeared during the event, as guests including Jennifer Lopez, Tiffany Haddish, and Eric Ándre sat in the audience.

Ratings were good with 13.5 million views, high enough for it to top the English TV category, although slightly less than the Brady event, which wracked up 13.8 million views in its first week on the streamer, according to *Deadline*.

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But it's been called out for its jokes.

Handler found jokes from both Gillis and Hinchcliffe racist and sexist: "I mean, it was ick. It was gross," she said on the May 20 episode of the *Funny Knowing You** *podcast with Deon Cole.

She pointed to a joke Gillis had made about lynching, while Hinchcliffe used the suicide of Underwood's husband to get a laugh.

Hart himself acknowledged afterward, during an appearance on *The Breakfast Club*, that Hinchcliffe's bit about George Floyd, a Black man murdered by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020, "wasn't tasteful to our culture."

Watch the full podcast above.

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