Jerrod Carmichael is defending his “slave play” joke on his HBO Max series, Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show. The comedian got backlash over his joke on Twitter with many fans questioning why he would make the joke in the first place and what it looks for the Black queer community.
“My boyfriend, he makes me smarter, he makes me read. I have so many books. Realistically I’m not gonna read all those books. He knows that. But the fact that I bought them says I love you. They’re little monuments around my apartment just like ‘look at this book from Amazon that I’m never gonna read,” he says on stage.
He then tells the audience: “I sometimes joke to him that our relationship is like that of a slave and a master’s son — who, like, teaches me how to read by candlelight.”
The joke fell with the crowd where Carmichael responds: “Yeah, he groans too ’cause he’s a good person,” he said. “He doesn’t like that f—ing joke. I like that joke. That’s my burden, I think that s—‘s hilarious!’
Charlamagne Tha God Comments On “Slave Play” Joke
Charlamagne Tha God said that he only saw a clip of the joke online which upset Carmichael as he missed the context of the joke.
“You played a clip of my stand up, but it started at the punchline, and it like completely erased the setup of it, Carmichael said to Charlamagne per Entertainment Weekly. “I really don't like that. It made it seem like I was talking like I'm into some type of race sexual slavery role play with my boyfriend, which is untrue.”
He added, “It's so false, and I expect that type of thing from TMZ, ‘cause they have no humanity. They don't care about the people that get hurt when they report these sort of things. But you’re a friend, so I really didn't like that.”
The comedian reiterated that he needed to watch the show to fully understand what he was saying which is “the joke is “about my boyfriend reading so much that he makes me feel insecure about my level of reading.”
“Yeah, but I need you to watch the show! And anybody who watches the show knows it's not what I said,” the comedian continued. “It’s so false, it's so untrue, and I don't like that because it's like… it has nothing to do with my boyfriend. It has nothing [to do with] the sex that we have. It has nothing to do with sex. It's something that people have been reporting on and I really really don't like it.”
However, it didn't matter to the media personality bc to him (and a lot of people on Twitter), that “in context, the joke’s still not a good joke,” Charlamagne Tha God said.
“Look, I get it. It's something that people have been running with because I have a white boyfriend, so like people try and create some type of crazy story out of that. And it's a small group of people. I read all the tweets and it's like, some gay Black men and some Klu Klux Klan members who don't like that I have a white boyfriend. They agree on that, so congratulations,” the comedian responded.
He continued, “But he's a human being. He deserves respect. I deserve respect. I don't appreciate things being misreported… I'm a human being and people can get hurt. They're actually real lives at stake with the things that you say. Come after me, that's fine, but don't come after like my boyfriend.”
Carmichael concluded saying, “But don't misconstrue what I said and don't make it into something that it's not, because that's where I start to get offended.”
Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show has new episodes on HBO Max every Friday.
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