Michael Che, Kevin Hart roast backlash grows after Floyd joke

michael che is now tied to the fallout around Tony Hinchcliffe’s George Floyd joke during Netflix’s The Roast of Kevin Hart, a line that drew criticism from George Floyd’s family and Twin Cities Black community leaders. Hinchcliffe told Kevin Hart, “The Black community is so proud of you,” then added, “Right now George Floyd is looking up at us all laughing so hard that he can’t breathe.”

Travis Cains, a spokesperson for the Gianna and George Floyd Foundation, called Hinchcliffe a “racist comedian” and said the family wants “to rebuild things for our community and make things better in our community.” He also pushed for “a little bit more positive” material, a sharper rebuke than the usual roast pushback because it came from Floyd’s family side, not just from viewers online.

Kevin Hart roast fallout

Kevin Hart later thanked his peers in an Instagram post and wrote of Hinchcliffe, “Relentless as he always is, but funny,” adding, “You can’t have emotions. You have to understand the assignment.” That response matters because Hart was the roast’s honoree and, in this format, the host’s reaction can signal how much room the comic line has inside the event’s rules.

Hinchcliffe’s joke also landed after a pattern that already had industry baggage. In 2021, he was dropped by his agency after video of him mocking an Asian American comic went viral, and at a Donald Trump rally in 2024 he described Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”

Twice before July 18

The George Floyd reference was not the first time Hinchcliffe had pushed that boundary in front of a large audience. At the Tom Brady roast in 2024, he referred to Rob Gronkowski as looking “like the final boss in George Floyd: The Video Game” that a player has to defeat to move forward, which makes Sunday’s line part of a recurring approach rather than a one-off misfire.

Around a dozen Twin Cities Black community advocates and leaders gathered Wednesday to decry the special, and Nekima Levy Armstrong said the joke made her “sick to my stomach.” For viewers and industry observers, that means the reaction moved beyond the roast room and into civic criticism, where the standard is not whether the joke landed but whether the platform wants to keep giving the comic a stage.