Ben Affleck’s roast of Tom Brady gets roasted itself

Last Updated on May 22, 2024

Roasts can be brutal and humiliating. But we’re not talking about the spotlight celeb, we mean when somebody bombs hard. We’ve all seen it happen and there’s always one – and this time around, Ben Affleck was the bomb (and not in the Phantoms kind of way), delivering a viral rant during The Greatest Roast of All Time that spent less time sacking Tom Brady and more going in delirious circles.

So what happened with Ben Affleck? Comedian Nikki Glaser – who was also included in the roast of Tom Brady – shared her insights with KFC Radio (via Deadline), saying, “I haven’t watched it again because I don’t like to watch people bomb. I know what happened: he didn’t prepare. He’s someone who’s famous enough he probably thinks it’s beneath him to do this. ‘I’m just gonna do a favor, it’s not gonna be that big of a deal.’” She added, “Either they couldn’t get him on the phone enough to work out something, or he didn’t practice enough. He just picked a bad premise and then he had to stick to it the whole time. It didn’t work right away, so it’s not gonna work later.”

The core problem, though, may be that Ben Affleck really isn’t all that funny of a guy (without proper writing, at least) and his most famous link to Brady is a recent Super Bowl spot. For those who haven’t seen his interpretation of what a roast should be, at one point he veered off into taking genuine digs at some internet commentator dubbed “Tall Boy Henry”, slamming him for even thinking about bashing Tom Brady, who Affleck spent the bulk of his time fawning over – you know, the exact opposite of a roast. It was like that scene in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back where Holden blasts faceless trolls on web forums – except that scene had a few laughs.

Dane Cook – who was in attendance for the Tom Brady roast – also commented on Ben Affleck’s attempt. “He decided to deliver a monologue that…didn’t work. And he tied into it for, what, four or five minutes. And about 45 seconds in, it was clear that it just wasn’t the right choice.” Cook would praise him as a fellow Boston native but concluded, “That was just not his night…and so he came in last place.”

The roast of Tom Brady had some high points but also had enough lows that the former quarterback ended up completely regretting the night.