Wanda Sykes says she was asked by Kevin Hart to join his Netflix roast, told him "No," and spent the night instead at a Los Angeles Sparks WNBA game — a choice she now calls fortunate. On the "Good One" podcast, Sykes said she had spoken with Hart before the roast was announced and refused the invitation; "Thank God" she did, she added.
The roast landed as one of Netflix’s bigger comedy events this year, drawing 13.5 million viewers in its first week — a figure the streamer publicized even as it was 2% lower than the previous Tom Brady roast. The special ran on the final night of the Netflix Is a Joke festival and included established comics and Hollywood names such as Sheryl Underwood, Katt Williams, Regina Hall and Dwayne Johnson.
Sykes was blunt about why she stayed away. She told listeners the evening "went wrong because of 'Just lazy, lazy writing,'" and that the roasts felt like "recycled sexist, racist, gay jokes. Like, come on." Those words echoed other public reactions: one comedian who had been involved criticized the writing and another performer who withdrew earlier took to social media to condemn white writers for jokes about slavery and sex crimes. Chelsea Handler called parts of the material "gross," and labeled some of the comics "racist" and "sexist."
That backlash centered on jokes that brought race, sexual violence and a recent police killing into the room in ways many viewers and fellow comedians found unacceptable. The roast included a gag referencing a high-profile police killing and another that compared Hart’s height to the brutality of lynching; critics said those lines crossed a line between provocation and cruelty.
Hart has pushed back selectively. On a morning radio program he said he understood some of the jokes were not tasteful but also said he did not grasp the depth of the uproar, telling detractors plainly, "OK … we move on." The disconnect — Hart accepting some missteps while questioning the intensity of criticism — is the clearest public tension between the roaster and those who declined to participate.
Not every comedian attached to the event showed up. Reporting indicated that Michael Che was initially on board before pulling out for scheduling reasons; Che later criticized the white writers responsible for some of the roast’s more controversial jokes. That departure and public rebukes from peers sharpened the conversation around authorship and responsibility for the material.
Sykes’s decision to walk away was framed not as a tactical career move but as a moral choice. She recalled a phone call from Hart in which he urged her to join — "Come on, Wanda. Come on. It'll be good for your special" — and said she declined. The moment is revealing because it places a veteran comic at the center of the debate over where comedy ends and harm begins, and because Sykes has now publicly weighed in against a high-profile Netflix event rather than staying quiet.
Netflix’s numbers complicate the fallout: despite the controversy, the roast registered as a ratings hit by the streamer’s measure. That tension — commercial success amid artistic and ethical pushback — is the story’s friction point. It leaves unanswered who exactly wrote the jokes that drew the sharpest criticism and whether Netflix will alter how it stages or vets roasts going forward.
For now, Sykes’s answer is simple and final: she declined the show, attended the Sparks game and now stands by that choice. The more consequential question the roast leaves behind is not whether the special found viewers — it did — but whether Netflix and the comedians involved will change how they decide what counts as a joke worth broadcasting. No public change to the roast format or the writers’ roster has been announced.
Hart continues to be attached to other projects with the streamer (see Henry Cavill Joins Kevin Hart in Untitled Netflix Spy-Action Comedy from McG — but the roast episode has left both reputational and industry questions unresolved: who accepted responsibility for the worst lines, and whether the format that produced them will survive this fallout intact.
