Sheryl Underwood walked into The Roast of Kevin Hart Sunday night already knowing she was going to get worked over. What she did not have to do was tell the room she was a legend. By the time she walked off the Kia Forum stage, the crowd was on its feet, the dais was laughing in genuine shock, and most of the post show recaps had her listed as the best set of the entire three hour broadcast. She earned the only proper standing ovation of the night.
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The setup was not easy. Both Shane Gillis, who hosted the broadcast, and Tony Hinchcliffe used parts of their sets to make jokes about the death of Sheryl’s husband Michael Sparkman, who died by suicide in 1990 after a long battle with depression. Sheryl has spoken openly and tenderly about that loss for decades, including on The Talk, and she has used her platform to advocate for mental health conversations in the Black community. Both Gillis and Hinchcliffe leaned into the tragedy as material. Cameras cut to Sheryl in the audience and she appeared composed, even smiling through it. Gillis told the room he had cleared the jokes with her in advance, which is standard roast etiquette but did not soften the response from viewers at home. The internet has been less forgiving than Sheryl was. Critics across BET, Complex, and Pajiba have called the bits tasteless, unnecessary, and the worst calls of the night.
What made the night belong to Sheryl was the comeback. She got to her feet, walked to the stage, and immediately took the room. She opened with a freedom of speech riff that put the crowd on notice that nothing was off the table from her side either. Then she went around the dais picking targets one at a time. She teased Chelsea Handler about her dating history. She told the crowd Pete Davidson is “driving these b*tches crazy.” She brought up an old kiss with John Stamos in detail that made him visibly squirm in his seat. She turned on Kevin and told the audience he was packing ten inches, paused, and clarified that those ten inches were his legs. The line landed so cleanly the dais broke.
She also reminded everyone in the building that she has known the Hart family for years and has been in touch with Kevin’s mother, which gave her a kind of authority on the subject of Kevin Hart that not even Katt Williams could claim. When she did decide to soften, she did it on her own terms. Near the end of her set she got quiet, turned to Kevin, and gave the audience the line that has become the moral center of the entire roast in the days since. She told him roasts only happen for people who are loved, and that the love in the room was real. The dais stood. The crowd stood. Reviewers across the board are now calling her the Nikki Glaser of this roast, a reference to the breakout set Glaser delivered at The Roast of Tom Brady in 2024.
She also defended The Rock after his own controversial moment in the broadcast, telling TMZ the next day that roast comedy plays by a different set of rules and audiences understand the context. That kind of veteran read on the format is what separates Sheryl from most of the room. She has been doing comedy longer than half the dais has been alive, and she went out there at 62 years old, took the heaviest jokes of the night about the most painful chapter of her life, and out worked everybody.
The Roast of Kevin Hart was a chaotic three hour broadcast that handed out plenty of viral moments. The Usher opening, the Katt Williams reunion, the Tony Hinchcliffe controversies. Sheryl Underwood walked off with the trophy. Watch the set when you can. It is the one that ages best.
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