Eight Months After Charlie Kirk Was Shot Dead, Pete Davidson Used the Assassination as Netflix Punchline Fodder. The Audience Didn’t Laugh.
- 8 months since Charlie Kirk was assassinated at Utah Valley University — Sept. 10, 2025 — Fox News Digital
- 7 years old Pete Davidson's age when he lost his own father — FDNY firefighter Scott Davidson — to sudden violent death on 9/11 — Multiple profiles
- 0 appreciable laughs from the live Kia Forum audience when the Kirk bit landed, per multiple witness accounts — Hollywood Reporter · Blake Neff
- 9 sources used in this report — Fox News, TMZ, Hollywood Reporter, Daily Caller, Breitbart, Consequence, The Blast, Primetimer, UNILAD — Civic Intelligence
Charlie Kirk was shot and killed on September 10, 2025. He was 31 years old. He was standing at a podium at Utah Valley University, speaking to a crowd of students, when he was assassinated. He left behind a wife and children.
Eight months later, Pete Davidson walked onto a Netflix stage at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles and used that assassination as a sex joke prop. The roast was Netflix’s live special honoring Kevin Hart. Davidson was one of the featured comedians. And when he got to the Charlie Kirk bit, the live audience — not exactly a politically conservative crowd — went quiet.
That’s the tell. When a roast crowd won’t laugh, it’s not because the joke was too edgy. It’s because even they knew it was wrong.
Davidson was targeting fellow comedian Tony Hinchcliffe when he pivoted to Kirk. His exact words: “Tony reminds me of Charlie Kirk, in that he’s definitely been on camera letting a guy unload in his throat.”
The phrasing is a deliberate allusion to Kirk’s on-camera assassination. Kirk was shot in the throat while at the podium. Davidson’s construction makes that the punchline. Then, pivoting back to Hinchcliffe’s podcast “Kill Tony,” Davidson added: “Kill Tony! Please. Someone f***ing kill Tony!”
So in the span of thirty seconds: a graphic sex joke referencing a man’s assassination, and a call for someone to kill another person. Netflix streamed it live.
“Tony reminds me of Charlie Kirk, in that he's definitely been on camera letting a guy unload in his throat.”
Pete Davidson — Netflix Roast of Kevin Hart, May 10, 2026
Pete Davidson Gets 'Insensitive' With Charlie Kirk Joke — Kevin Hart Roast Viewers SLAM Netflix Show
Pete Davidson was seven years old on September 11, 2001. His father, Scott Matthew Davidson, was an FDNY firefighter who died responding to the World Trade Center attacks. Pete Davidson has spoken at length over the years about how that loss — sudden, violent, public — shaped everything about him.
Charlie Kirk’s children will grow up without their father. Killed suddenly. Violently. On camera. The same template Davidson has described as the defining wound of his own life.
“He lost his father on 9/11. He understands the pain of growing up without a dad. But he’s joking about a man whose children will now grow up without theirs.”
There is no punchline to that observation. It is simply what it is.
Pete Davidson Charlie Kirk Joke During 'The Roast of Kevin Hart' Explained
Blake Neff, a producer of The Charlie Kirk Show, posted on X the following day. He didn’t pretend the joke was fine. But he also tried to contextualize it — which itself became a point of contention.
I didn’t like it, and I’m glad the audience wasn’t into it, but there are other ‘jokes’ we’ve seen that are clearly a lot more hateful in intent than Pete’s, and a few bad-taste jokes about Charlie are the price we have to pay for how iconic he has become in American culture.
Andrew Kolvet, a TPUSA producer and one of Kirk’s close friends, was less measured. He told TMZ he physically cringed when the bit landed. He acknowledged that roast comedy can be a legitimate cultural release valve — but said this crossed the line completely, given how brutal and public Kirk’s murder was.
Wildly distasteful. I physically cringed. Charlie was murdered in front of an audience — it was brutal and public and 8 months ago. There’s a line. This crossed it completely.
Across social media the reaction from general viewers was blunt. “Wow. That might be the most tasteless joke I’ve heard. Truly ghoulish.” “Pete Davidson was disgusting talking about Charlie Kirk. Absolutely disgraceful.” “Not funny. Not okay.”
Some defended it on roast-comedy grounds: “If you don’t laugh, you don’t get comedy.” But the fact that Davidson’s own live audience didn’t laugh suggests the debate isn’t about comedy norms. It’s about whether eight months is enough time to reduce a man’s assassination to a throat joke.
Charlie Kirk Show Producer Blake Neff Reacts to Pete Davidson Joke — Netflix Roast
Charlie Kirk was assassinated eight months ago. His killer shot him in the throat at a public speaking event, in front of an audience of college students, on camera. Pete Davidson chose that murder — specifically the manner of it — as raw material for a sex joke on a Netflix special streamed to millions.
The joke bombed with the live crowd. The Kirk Show’s own producer said he didn’t like it. Kirk’s close friends called it wildly distasteful. And the man who told it grew up without his own father after a sudden, violent, public death — and has made that loss the centerpiece of his public identity for twenty years.
Netflix has not commented. Davidson has not apologized. The special remains on the platform.