Photo: Club Shay Shay via YouTube
Remember The Last Dance? The must-watch documentary event of early 2020 in which Michael Jordan, reflecting on his final NBA championship campaign and legacy, captivated the world by finally cutting loose on his former teammates, rivals, and the headlines that dogged him throughout his career? Well, imagine if The Last Dance consisted solely of one long interview, switched focus from basketball to stand-up, and swapped out Jordan for comedy legend Katt Williams.
On January 3, the internet was stopped in its tracks by precisely this as Williams sat down for a nearly three-hour tour-de-force interview with ESPN First Take correspondent Shannon Sharpe on his podcast, Club Shay Shay. “The reason I had to come is because you’ve made a safe place for the truth to be told,” Williams said at the top of the interview. “And I have watched all of these lowbrow comedians come here and disrespect you in your face and tell you straight-up lies.” Was he there to “set the record straight”? Sharpe asked in reply. Apparently so.
Over the course of the interview, Williams makes outrageous claims (he said Harvey Weinstein offered to “suck my penis in front of all my people at my agency”); airs personal grievances with a half-dozen or so comedians, such as Cedric the Entertainer (who allegedly stole one of his jokes) and Michael Blackson (a comedian who doesn’t get “booed enough”); goes deep on the production of Friday After Next; and dismisses rumors about his personal life. He may not always be the most reliable narrator, and there are moments — like when he refers to Kim Kardashian as a “whore” or fixates too much on which male comedians have worn dresses in movies — that will raise eyebrows. But this is very much a strap-in-and-enjoy-the-ride situation.
Before the interview even finished premiering on YouTube, it began going viral on Twitter, inspiring memes, jokes, and fact-checking; provoking responses from some of Williams’s targets; sparking discourse about how young Black comedians rarely get the exposure these older Black comedians continue to get; and much more. To get the full effect, one must watch the podcast episode in full, but below is a brief selection of its various highlights, flagrant accusations, and possible libel.
On Kevin Hart: “In 15 years in Hollywood, no one in Hollywood has a memory of a sold-out Kevin Hart show, there being a line for him, ever getting a standing ovation at any comedy club. He already had his deals when he got here. Have we heard of a comedian that came to L.A., and in his first year in L.A., he had his own sitcom on network television and had his own film called Soul Plane that he was leading? No. We’ve never heard of that before that person or since that person. What do you think a plant is? Maybe people don’t understand the definitions of these words. He just did his documentary with Chris Rock, where he shows you that his whole upbringing in comedy was on the East Coast. So how, simultaneously, was he here in Los Angeles doing the same thing? It didn’t happen.
For a five-year period, every single movie that Kevin Hart did was a movie that had been on my desk. All I had said was ‘Can we take some of this Stepin Fetchit shit out and then I can do it? It don’t need to be overtly homosexual ’cause I’m not homosexual. It doesn’t need that to be funny, right?’ And me saying that and them going, ‘Oh yeah, no problem,’ and then going to give it to this other guy and having him doing it just like it was and acting like I’m a bad person ’cause I keep standing on my standard.
They tell you there’s no gatekeepers, but we keep seeing the same person open the gate. Didn’t Kevin let Tiffany [Haddish] in? … What do you mean ain’t no gatekeepers? There’s a hundred gates out here. Every one I seen got a keeper.”
On Cedric the Entertainer: “Cedric sitting here telling you why he ain’t a movie star. He over here looking like a walrus … He can’t even get his arms off his stomach. Sitting over here: ‘Why I’m not a movie star?’ He never wrote anything! Remember, when Cedric the Entertainer starts, he’s supposed to be singing, dancing, and telling jokes. That’s why he’s called ‘the Entertainer.’ We found out he can’t sing, can’t dance, and doesn’t write jokes. He did four comedy specials. They’re so bad, Shannon, they’re not available on Netflix or Tubi. Can I say that again for the audience? They’re so bad that they’re not available on Netflix or Tubi.” (Cedric the Entertainer responded to Williams’s comments on Instagram, saying, “Revisionist History, regardless of whatever Katts opinion My career can’t be reduced to One Joke Katt Williams claims as his.”)
On Kanye West: “I suspect that we’re pretty awful people if we say that somebody got a mental illness and then we watch what they do. If you say somebody got special needs, then why would you be watching them and holding them accountable like everybody else? Wouldn’t you grade them on a curve? Because, I mean, what are we reacting to? You’re the one that put him in a position where he thought he was God and could call himself Yeezus. And you’re the one that told the guy that writes musical lyrics that he was a genius. You’re the one. So what do you expect? The guy married a whore! I mean, married her because she was one. Not he didn’t know. He understood that he wanted that. He courted that. That’s what he wanted to base his family on. If what I’m saying is not correct, then how did she end up with Pete Davidson? And what if you weren’t even good enough for Pete and he leaves you? What do that mean the product was? No, I don’t support or villainize Kanye, because I don’t understand what it is we want from him. I don’t know why we look at a basketball player and say, ‘He didn’t score no hockey goals this whole season!’ He don’t play hockey!”
On Harvey Weinstein: “They canceled me for talking about Harvey Weinstein before the thing came out. But he offered to suck my penis in front of all my people at my agency. What am I supposed to do? He did all of that. I’m thinking I’m the only Black person on the script. I get there — it’s three other Black guys on there. Huh. I told him ‘no.’ What y’all do?”
On Steve Harvey: “You couldn’t be a movie star. There are 30,000 new scripts in Hollywood every year. Not one of them asked for a country-bumpkin Black dude that can’t talk good and look like Mr. Potato Head.
Steve told you that he stopped doing stand-up because he has seven TV shows. The only problem is when he stopped stand-up, he didn’t have those seven TV shows. He stopped stand-up because he got in a comedy battle called The Championship of Stand-up Comedy with one Katt Williams in Detroit in front of 10,000 people and lost. Because Katt Williams said he was actually bald and that was a wig. And I went in, and that’s why he couldn’t do stand-up anymore. Imagine him coming to tell you another story where he got so big and it was Bernie [Mac] and them’s fault ’cause they wanted to be movie stars. What? You called Ocean’s Eleven to get that n – – – -’s part. What do you mean you didn’t want to be a movie star?
This is like Steve Harvey telling people he used to be homeless. That’s my story. That’s not his story. Steve Harvey was never homeless. Mark Curry was touring with him 25 years ago. He was making $3,000 a show in cash and doing five shows a week. They just tell the stories: ‘Thanks to my wife, I’m where I am.’ You said that about the first wife! You forget that? You told us it was her. Then you went and married somebody else that ‘think like a man.’ What are you talking about? They think they can rewrite history.”
On Rickey Smiley’s claims that Williams’s role in Friday After Next was intended for him: “I don’t know why he would lose a child and come on the air and start lying. That’s why people believe in rituals right there.
Your story is the Rickey Smiley that couldn’t even do curse words ’cause he had a Christian fan base … He was gon’ play the pimp? Why you didn’t ask him why has he played a woman in more movies than he’s played a man? You wouldn’t let an athlete that’s been on steroids talk about one of the greats. Rickey Smiley can’t act ’cause Rickey Smiley can’t act.
He was so egregious I put in my contract that I wouldn’t work with Rickey Smiley again unless he’s in a dress. Now what was Rickey Smiley’s next movie? Was it First Sunday? Did he wear a dress in it? You bet he did. It’s in my contract. That’s where he’s a believable actor. Him and Tyler Perry can’t play a man to save their life. They play good women, and I believe the best actor should be in the best role.”
On Chris Tucker: “The Chris Tucker that we have now is Epstein Island Chris Tucker, not Smokey.
Chris Tucker didn’t wanna be the poster child for smoking weed. He don’t smoke weed like that. He in the church. He Michael Jackson’s best friend. Michael Jackson called him Christmas. You ever met a man that gave you a nickname like that?”
On Diddy: “I came in this business saying I was gon’ expose. When I talked about Michael Jackson, when I talked about R. Kelly, they canceled me for these things. Because ‘Why would you talk about another Black dude?’ Race is not where the line is drawn. It’s God’s side and the other side. And we don’t care nothing about the other side — period. Period. All of these big dick deviants is all catching hell in 2024. It’s up for all of them. It don’t matter if you Diddy or whoever you is. T.D. Jakes — any of them. All lies will be exposed.”
On Wanda Smith: “You can’t flip up on me because you’re an inferior comedian. I’m going to destroy you, and I’m never gonna call you out of your name. I’m never gonna say anything disrespectful about people who look like you. It’s a very thin line I gotta call. But this lady is trying to embarrass me in front of a largely homosexual fan base. That’s why she got canceled. Gay people don’t take it kindly that you would, as a derogatory, call me gay. Gay people don’t feel like it’s derogatory. So why are you trying to shame me with something in a community I don’t belong in? There’s no gay people saying I belong over there or have been over there. But I have no hatred of over there, and how dare you.
I’m not trying to offend Black women with short hair. I’m not trying to offend heavyset women. I’m not trying to upset fellow comedians. I’m not trying to do any of that, and I’m qualified to be able to do none of that and still eviscerate you because I’m smart enough to know that I need to say that you have gnarled fingers because I know your limited education means you don’t know what the word means, so you can’t possibly respond to it. You’re not sure of the meaning.”
On Faizon Love: “I only put on comedians that are funnier than me. Anybody that ever told you differently was a fat-Faizon liar. There’s nobody like me in the business … Faizon said that getting a Netflix special is easy. I have 12 specials. Guess how many Faizon got? Zero. Why is he allowed to have conversations about real stand-up people? We do not let people who are on the juice discuss real athletes.”
On Michael Blackson: “Most comedians don’t get booed enough. That’s how you end up with Michael Blackson, who is a real African, doing a fake African accent.
If you’re the African King of Comedy, sir, there’s actually comedians in Africa doing comedy. If you’re gonna say that, you gotta go to Africa and get a school. You gotta put in some work. And these guys, they take my advice, they change their whole persona, and then they hate me for it.” (Blackson responded to Williams in a series of tweets, saying, among other things, “Katt Williams is a very smart midget neega, he took shots at the top 10 comedians alive today so we can all respond and make him relevant again.”)
On Jonathan Majors: “I didn’t want to get with a white woman ’cause I was scared she might have me running down the street like Jonathan Majors. Not because I didn’t like white women. I think white women are as great as any other women, but I’m not gonna act like I’m not scared of ’em. I have a reason to be scared. You could be Kang the Conqueror and they could take your rabid ass down in two weekends.
First of all, they went around the world for two years straight telling any women that would listen that this was a good-looking Negro. Since when? When did y’all start liking a big nose? When did y’all like a little head and a big jaw? When? That look like my daddy. When you start liking my daddy? You like Black people’s features like that?! If this ugly n – – – – is good-looking, then all n – – – – – is good-looking.
Thank you, Meagan Good. God bless you coming to save that slave. If he’d’ve had to be there by hisself, he was getting all four: guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. She came in there just so beautiful they had to knock half of it off, bless his heart.”
On Joe Rogan: “Joe don’t want me [on his show] … Joe got six comedians that never been funny he want to push out.”
On Martin Lawrence: “Martin tried to put me in my first dress. When he had to go on his hiatus, he tell me, ‘Katt, when I come back, I need you. You my young partner; you’re my brother in comedy. When I come back, just promise me that, my next movie, it’ll be me and you. We going to do it together. We gon’ do some buddy-cop shit.’ I said, ‘Martin, you got my motherfucking word, my n – – – – . Go do what you got to do. When you come back, I’m in your movie. Don’t trip. I don’t need to see the script or nothing.’ You know, we get in that office and this fool pull out Big Momma’s House 2. I almost died. And I got to read this script in front of all these good white people where this n – – – – want me to get in a dress with him.”
On Taraji P. Henson: “It was the saddest thing ever because imagine being in your genre — in your subniche, whatever it is. Imagine being in your lane, imagine being one of the very top of your lane to the point where, if they don’t take you for the role, there’s not three Black actresses that they can say are bigger than you that we gon’ give this to. Imagine you being at that point and have to humble yourself and say, ‘They not paying me, y’all, and they not making my pay go up ’cause I’m doing better or nothing. It don’t matter to them that I’m famous and people know me or nothing. They want to pay me exactly what they paying the new girl, and I’ve been suffering under it for a decade now and just taking it. I just been getting whooped, but I just got to come say this is wrong.’ We should be ashamed. But this is a country where we don’t pay the teachers and then we say the kids is the most important thing. You can’t have both of them! … This is what period of time [we’re] in. It’s the period where the victims get to say, ‘They’ve been hurting me for a long time, and I just ain’t said nothing.’”