The Roast of Kevin Hart premiered live on Netflix May 10, 2026, and drew around 26 million live viewers. Comedian and running joke of being a bad movie star, Kevin Hart, took punches from a variety of special guests, ranging from other comedians, rappers, sports all-stars and some of Kevin Hart’s clients. Hart is one of the biggest names when you talk about comedians, and there is definitely a lot to roast about him. The obvious one being his height, or lack thereof, but some roasts about him were so out of the blue, it was honestly shocking when it was not a short joke. However, it was an amazing night filled with great comedy for people to truly enjoy.
To kick the night off, special guest Usher started with a song performance with help from the band ‘The Roots’ that targeted Kevin Hart with all new words from a couple of Usher’s hit songs. NFL legend Tom Brady was the first roaster of the night and finally got his payback on Kevin Hart after the roast, where Tom Brady was roasted by Kevin Hart. Other famous guests included Chelsea Handler, Pete Davidson, Tony Hinchcliffe, NBA all-star Draymond Green, singer Lizzo and “roast master general” Jeff Ross, who hosted the Tom Brady roast. The final special guest of the night was none other than Kevin Hart’s best friend, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who absolutely killed it.
The main thing I liked about this roast is that there was no bad comedian. Every single comedian was very good, and the night kept rolling with something new every 10 minutes. I thought the best comedian of the night was honestly Kevin Hart, who had his “payback” at the end of the show. Shane Gillis was also incredible, who really got into darker topics but made light of those situations like he usually does. The theme of the night was centered around a boxing theme, and every roaster got introduced with their own song that was made funny to almost contradict their personality. All of these songs were played live by the Roots, which was great. When Kevin Hart walked out to get his payback, “The Largest” By BigXthaplug played. And sorry, Kevin, you are definitely not the largest.
One of the biggest complaints I had was that comedian Nikki Glaser was not on the set. I really thought she would be, because she was in the Roast of Tom Brady, along with Kevin Hart’s recent Netflix TV show, “Funny AF.” I do believe Nikki is the best roaster in the world right now, and she is honestly too good not to be at an event like this. Netflix has recently relied heavily on its success with its live events, which are only available to people with a Netflix subscription. Big events such as NFL Thanksgiving games, Jake Paul VS Mike Tyson fight, MLB opening night and now the Roast of Kevin Hart have all been hosted live on Netflix. I have really enjoyed what Netflix has done with these live events because they are very well done, especially the sports events. Netflix can continue to do this because every single event has performed extremely well in terms of live viewership.
The Roast of Kevin Hart was extremely funny and did what it was intended to do, which was bring together a group of people who love comedy and perform for them live on Netflix. It was an amazing night of comedy, but there are still definitely better skits and live comedy shows out there, one of them being “Funny AF,” which was way funnier than this.
“The Roast of Kevin Hart:” ★★★★☆
