Tony Hinchcliffe and Shane Gillis made a cruel joke about Sheryl Underwood’s husband’s suicide on Netflix’s The Roast of Kevin Hart.
“Her husband committed suicide three years into their marriage. I sat next to her for two hours and you have to ask how she lived that long,” Hinchcliffe quipped on stage at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif., on Sunday.
The camera cut to Underwood, 62, laughing hysterically in the audience.
Gillis, who hosted the roast, also aimed for tragedy early on in the show.
“Cheryl’s husband committed suicide, and apparently Black is so upset that he’s married to Sheryl that he jumps off the King’s roof,” Underwood said with a laugh.
Gillis, 38, also joked: “I’m going to do it from the balcony. I’m going to do it from the upper deck. Fuck everyone here.”
In his next joke, he said, “The Golden State Warriors logo is a bridge. Don’t show it to Sheryl’s husband. Seriously, keep that bridge away from Sheryl’s husband.”
As Underwood continued to laugh, Gillis told the crowd, “I called her yesterday. Shut up. That made me feel terrible. I had to call her.”
“She was into it. She was like, ‘Are you going to make fun of my husband who fell off a bridge?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah,'” she said with a smile.
Hinchcliffe’s joke sparked a backlash on social media.
One person wrote to X that it was “terrible”, while another said it was “not funny at all”.
Another fan tweeted: “Is this funny? He went too far with that comment.”
“This is in bad taste,” another wrote.
Page Six has reached out to Underwood’s representatives for comment.
Underwood and her husband, whose name has not been released, had been married for three years when he took his own life in 1990.
She opened up about his death on The Talk in 2018 when discussing Kate Spade’s suicide.
“As you know, my husband committed suicide, so I’m a little emotional about this,” a tearful Underwood told her co-hosts.
“You’ll never know. To those who think they know. You’ll never know if it’s depression. You’ll never know if it’s financial stress,” the comedian added.
Underwood also revealed that her husband “left a note” for her before he died.
“And the effect the memo has on those who are still alive shows that those who are no longer alive have the last word,” she said. “There’s nothing we can do about it now.”
“And that pain… never goes away,” she added.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or text the Crisis Text Line at 741741.
