Tom Brady's roast rebuttal on deflategate brought down the house
Celebrities filled the Kia Forum in Los Angeles on Sunday for the "Greatest Roast of All Time: The Roast of Tom Brady," a made-for-streaming live comedy event where the seven-time Super Bowl champion quarterback took on three hours of full-contact comedy, absorbing blows from former teammates and comics on everything from Deflategate to divorce.
Top jokes and jabs from 'The Roast of Tom Brady'
"Five-time Super Bowl MVP, most career wins, most career touchdowns. You have seven rings -- well, eight, now that Gisele gave hers back," comedian Nikki Glaser, hailed as one of the funniest comics of the evening at the marquee event for the annual Netflix is a Joke Festival, said in her monologue, referring to Brady's ex-wife Gisele Bündchen.
Eight of Brady's former New England Patriots teammates joined him onstage -- Drew Bledsoe, Randy Moss, Rob Gronkowski, Julian Edelman, Rodney Harrison, Willie McGinest, Matt Light and Nate Solder -- as well as his longtime head coach Bill Belichick who made a surprise entrance and reunion with Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who delivered rips at Brady's expense.
Kevin Hart, who hosted the special event, taunted Brady about his Brazilian model ex-wife, whose reported new boyfriend is a jiujitsu instructor.
"How do you not see this coming? Eight karate classes a day and she's still a white belt," Hart joked.
The evening included an array of humorous jabs from some of the biggest names in stand-up comedy -- Jeff Ross, Tom Segura, Tony Hinchcliffe, Bert Kreischer and more. Will Ferrell also showed up in character as Ron Burgundy to rile up the crowd. Actor, writer, director and notable Bostonian Ben Affleck, who recently co-starred in a Dunkin' Super Bowl commercial alongside Ferrell, was also in attendance.
Kim Kardashian also got in on the action. "Honestly its hard for me to watch people roast you, but I think enough of my family members have helped defend former football players," she told Brady, referring to her father Robert Kardashian, who famously defended friend O.J. Simpson in the latter's 1995 murder trial.
At one point in the evening, as expertly crafted insults were hurled across the stage, Brady's former tight end Gronkowski got tripped up reading the teleprompter and ended his shtick with his trademark celebratory move, spiking a shot glass in lieu of a football, which created a shattered mess for Hart to clean up.
Elsewhere in the evening, Belichick reunited onstage with Kraft, and the two did a shot together as Kraft praised the coach and Brady alike, in a rare lighter moment.
Fellow NFL great Peyton Manning arrived at the tail end of the night to re-up the two men's friendly rivalry and razzed Brady for losing two Super Bowls to his younger brother Eli Manning, later handing off the podium to the "three-time Super Bowl loser."
Tom Brady's best rebuttals at Netflix Greatest Roast of All Time
In the end, Brady had the last laugh, delivering blows to each of the aforementioned guests.
"I know sometimes you live in Denver, and sometimes you live in Louisiana. But you will always live in my shadow," he said, speaking to Manning.
"I know Kim [Kardashian] was terrified to be here tonight, not because of this, but because her kids are home with her dad," Brady at another point, making a dig about the reality star's ex-husband Kanye West.
In an ultimate crescendo, Brady nearly brought down the house when he addressed the 2015 NFL controversy in which he and the Patriots were accused of deliberately using game balls that were improperly inflated.
"Remember Deflategate? The NFL spent $20 million and found that it was more probable than not that I was generally aware that someone may have deflated my footballs. You could have just given me the $20 million, and I would have just told you I f---- did it."
