“Roasts have never been nominated for anything before,” says Jeff Ross, Netflix’s “Roastmaster General.” Best Roast Ever: Tom BradyStill reeling from the Emmy nomination for the special. “But it’s a great American tradition that’s been going on for over 100 years. To see it on par with the Oscars, the Tony Awards, the Grammy Awards and the Super Bowl Halftime Show makes me very proud.”
The event, which saw Kevin Hart and Rob Gronkowski take on the greatest quarterback of all time, was three years in the making. The idea came about one Super Bowl Sunday, when Ross noticed Brady watching clips of old roasts on Ross’ Instagram Stories.
“I wrote him, jokingly, saying we should roast him,” Ross recalls. Brady wrote back, “LFG” — “Let’s fuck go” — and after some backroom negotiations at WME (where both are represented), the wheels were in motion. When the stars finally aligned, Netflix offered Ross “a format to do whatever we want, uncensored.” He assembled a murderous lineup of insult comedians — not all of them household names. “Seeing my friends like Nikki Glaser, Tony Hinchcliffe, and Sam Jay having a blast gives me a lot of pride,” he says.
If the blockbuster event — which racked up 1.67 billion minutes of viewing in its first week, by far the largest audience for a Netflix special — is remembered for a viral moment, it was when Brady approached Ross onstage after the latter made a remark about New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s massage parlor scandal and warned him: “Don’t you ever say that shit again.”
Ross insists he received no instructions from Brady in advance and that the warning was not that serious. “I think he was just watching me like a lawyer would object on behalf of his client, even though he knows his decision will probably be overturned.”
Kraft, who was in the audience, “was a great sport,” Ross added. “I talked to him afterward and he loved it. The jokes can be a little hurtful, but they always end with a hug. You just criticize the people you love.”
Ross’s proudest moment? Appearing in a No. 32 “Roast O.J. Simpson” jersey (the NFL running back turned accused killer died a month earlier) and saying, “What’s up, Patriots? I’m back from hell. Aaron Hernandez says hi.” As that tasteless joke suggests, there’s no queue when it comes to roast jokes, and Ross doesn’t regret the jokes that didn’t make it to the air. “I put the best food on the table,” he says. “If there’s jokes I want to make, I’m going to make them.”
This article first appeared in the August 7 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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