By Helen Bezuneh
Special to the AFRO
hbezueneh@afro.com
The last two weeks have consisted of response videos, diss tracks, rumors and memes related to comments made by comedian Katt Williams during an intimate interview with Shannon Sharpe.
The explosive interview has everyone in the comedy entertainment world firing back at the artist, who held no punches when it came to his truth.
In his conversation with Sharpe on “Club Shay Shay,” Williams called out comedian and television host Rickey Smiley for allegedly lying when did his interview on the platform. Smiley said that he was originally supposed to take on the role of Money Mike in the film “Friday After Next,” a role that Williams ultimately played. He also said Williams was originally cast in the film in the role of Santa Claus.
“You mean in Hollywood they cast a five foot five Black Santa Claus, that weighs 140 pounds– that’s your story? Your story is the Rickey Smiley–who couldn’t even do curse words because he had a Christian fanbase– he was going to play the pimp?
Williams also called out Cedric the Entertainer, Steve Harvey, Kevin Hart and more for not being the great comedians they claim to be.
“Every guy I’ve mentioned to you is not funny out there in real life,” Williams told Sharpe.
Shortly after criticizing Cedric the Entertainer for stealing one of his best jokes for the Kings of Comedy tour in the 1990s, Williams called Hart an “industry plant,” claiming he had not worked hard for his success.
“He already had his deals when he got here. Have we ever heard of a comedian that came to L.A. – and in his first year in L.A. had his own sitcom on network television and his own movie called “Soul Plane” that he was leading? No. We’ve never heard of that before that person or since that person,” Williams said, speaking of his success in L.A.
The comedian also pointed fingers at Harvey for supposedly claiming he stopped doing stand-up because he was busy with seven television shows.
“The only problem is, when he stopped standup, he didn’t have those seven TV shows,” said Williams. “He stopped stand-up because he got in a comedy battle called the ‘Championship of Stand-up Comedy’ with 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. I went in and that’s why he couldn’t do stand-up anymore.”
The comedian also discussed the viral, explosive radio interview he had with Wanda Smith during a 2018 episode of “Frank and Wanda In The Morning.” Williams told Sharpe that Smith promised the interview would not discuss his “kids,” “jail” or “cases” and would instead focus on his recent Emmy win. However, instead Smith “immediately” went “the opposite way” once the interview began, Williams claimed. After Smith ridiculed Williams’ hair and called him “little mama,” Williams unleashed a chain of offenses towards the radio host.
“You can’t flip up on me because you’re an inferior comedian,” he told Sharpe. “I’m going to destroy you and I’m never going to call you out of your name. I’m never going to say anything disrespectful to people that look like you. It’s a very thin line I have to call, but this lady is trying to embarrass me in front of a largely homosexual fanbase.”
“Gay people don’t take it kindly that you would, as a derogatory , call me gay,” he continued. “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 even belong in?”
The shots fired were endless, as the nearly three-hour interview went on, to be posted in its entirety, seemingly uninterrupted and unedited. While the interview is lengthy, that has not stopped it from gaining more than 50 million views within the first two weeks of its release.
Media buzz about the Club Shay Shay interview shows no sign of stopping, as NBC’s ever popular comedy show, Saturday Night Live, presented a parody of Sharpe and Williams in a segment on Jan. 20.