May 08, 2024
The roast of Tom Brady on Sunday night was a divisive blast of entertainment, the kind rooted in a tradition of no-holds-barred insults that can't be spoken in any other public setting.
Brady made headlines locally for ripping the people of Philadelphia, who have never spared him the humiliation of his defeat against Nick Foles and the Eagles in Super Bowl LII.
"Philly fans are just racist a**holes!" Brady said on the live Netflix special. "But (host) Kevin Hart is from there, so I get it. ... In Philly, they have to grease up the light poles so people don't climb them after games. You know how they grease up those poles? They rub someone from Philadelphia on them."
Brady's shots at Philly were pretty tame compared to some of the barbs thrown around during the roast, which went on for more than three hours. He tore into Kim Kardashian, claiming she was fearful of having to leave her kids supervised by unhinged ex-husband Kanye West. And Nikki Glaser, always a viper at roasts, ridiculed Brady's divorce from supermodel Gisele Bündchen.
"You have seven rings," Glaser said. "Well, eight now that Gisele gave hers back."
On Wednesday's episode of the "New Heights" podcast Jason and Travis Kelce shared their thoughts on the roast.
"I really don't f***ing get it," Jason said. "I don't get why people do roasts. I don't get why they're a thing. 'Ha ha ha ha, yeah, my family's ruined! It's so funny! Everyone's laughing! It's great! We're all having fun, right?'"
The brothers considered a hypothetical scenario in which they agreed to be roasted. Travis said he'd want comedians Andrew Santino, Dave Chappelle and Kevin Hart to do the honors.
"I would love Kevin to go up there and just f***ing rip me in half," he said.
Jason had a different take.
"I would pick people that I would have no problem getting into a fist fight with, like family," he said. "Like Dad, roast me, but I'm going to beat the f*** out of dad when the camera turns off."
Jason speculated that two of his former Eagles teammates, Lane Johnson and Darius Slay, would be skilled roasters if given the chance. The brothers agreed Chiefs head coach Andy Reid would excel, but in a wholesome way.
"He would say something that would be hilarious, but it wouldn't be that offensive," Jason said.
The one person Kelce would never let on stage to roast him is his wife, Kylie, who knows too much about him.
"Every day I'm getting roasted by Kylie. I don't need her to go up on stage and do that," Jason said. He revealed a sword on the podcast that he bought her for their anniversary, maybe suggesting he'd rather she take him down with that than any verbal venom.
The Brady roast has spurred all kinds of think pieces. IndieWire's Tony Maglio argued that the event shouldn't have been broadcast live, since some of the unedited footage suggested many of the people there were uneasy about some of the jokes. Afterward, Netflix reportedly edited out the crowd's booing of Kim Kardashian as she was attempting to tell a joke about Kevin Hart's height.
At the Washington Post, Sally Jenkins argued the special was misogynistic and that many of the jokes were cruel and cheap rather than funny.
"The uncomfortable truth is that the only person it shamed was (Brady), and not gently," Jenkins wrote.
Travis said he got a different impression from watching clips of the special, which he wasn't able to see live.
"I commend everybody because nobody seemed to get their feelings hurt," he said. "It just looked like everybody was having fun with it."
There was one joke the Kelce brothers both admired from Nicki Glaser.
"Tom also lost $30 million in (cryptocurrency)," Glaser said. "Tom, how did you fall for that? Even Gronk was like, 'Me know that not real money.'"
Nikki Glaser is Cooking Tom Brady😂 #TomBradyRoast pic.twitter.com/expQl6QzEP
— DORTIE (@TonyDortie) May 6, 2024
Jason then had a revelation.
"That's probably why he did the roast," he said. "It's just, bam! Alright, I take that back. I'll do a roast. What'd you guys pay Tom?"
Watch the full episode of "New Heights" below.