Justin Bieber‘s long-awaited Comedy Central Roast taped yesterday, and though it doesn’t air until March 30, a number of attendees have already begun sharing jokes around on the internet, because why the hell wouldn’t you?
Weirdly, one of the aspects that has us most intrigued is the menu. Per MTV‘s correspondent, the food consisted of meatloaf sliders, smoked salmon potato latkes, caprese and herb flatbreads, pop rock brownies and Twinkies.
Guests also received deviled eggs (with a warning they were not to be thrown), and bags of caramel popcorn. TBH, that stuff combined sounds exactly like the kind of gross shit our teenage selves would binge on.
We’re sad we missed out on the snacks, and also that we missed an opportunity to guzzle liters of #BieberRoast branded pinot noir and chardonnay then puke our guts out in an alleyway somewhere after the event.
When Biebs arrived, he spotted Workaholics stars Blake Anderson and Anders Holm milling around outside, and because he’s a big fan, demanded that they accompany him down the red carpet. They graciously agreed.
From what we’ve seen, one of the most amusing things to happen on stage wasn’t even the roast, but the below meeting between very, very large person Shaq and very, very tiny person Kevin Hart.
Some of the cruelest jabs came from Hannibal Buress, who said “Justin, I don’t like your music. I think it’s bad, man. I hate your music. I hate your music more than Bill Cosby hates my comedy.”
Amongst other off-colour repartee, Ludacris told Biebs “you act so much like a pussy, even Ellen tried to eat you,” while Jeff Ross said “Selena Gomez wanted to be here but she’s dating men now.”
Because Comedy Central roasts are a bizarre game of celebrity madlibs / a scramble to get whoever’s available, Martha Stewart and her good friend Snoop were also present.
Seth Rogen did not show up like Bieber wanted, but Natasha Legerro and Chris D’Elia both offered some snark. Will Ferrell made a surprise appearance as Ron Burgundy, to offer a defense of Bieber.
“You people don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he told the panel. “As far as I’m concerned, this guy is doing it right. I always encourage people to stay classy. And what’s more classy than hanging out with Floyd Mayweather?”
SNL‘s Pete Davidson had a go at his fellow roaster, saying “Hannibal Buress is famous for exposing Cosby. He’s only famous for exposing Bill Cosby. Bill Cosby hurt those women without ever caring about the consequences: that Hannibal Buress would become famous.”
The express purpose of this roast was for Justin Bieber to spruce up his image, and reinvent himself as an adult who can take a joke, instead of … well, pretty much everything he’s done up to this point.
Whoever wrote his cracks was very on their a-game, and he drew big laughs by asking “what do you get when you give a teenager $200 million? A bunch of has-beens calling you a lesbian for two hours.”
Then came the key moment when things got a little serious, and he delivered his big ‘I’m sorry, please love me again’ message in the style of an after-school special:
“There was really no preparing me for this life. I was thrown into this at 12 years old, and I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. There’s been moments I’m really proud of and a lot of moments I look back and I’m pretty disappointed with myself for. But the things that I’ve done really don’t define who I am. I’m a kind-hearted person who loves people and through it all, lost some of my best qualities. For that, I’m sorry. But what I can say is that I’m looking forward to being someone you can look at and be proud of.”
Afterwards, Bieber jumped on a plane to Las Vegas to celebrate his birthday, because of course he did. Somebody at Comedy Central now has the job of editing four hours of vicious insults down to a tight 40 minutes or so. Good luck with that.
Photo: Christopher Polk / Kevin Winter via Getty Images
