Cedric the Entertainer was spotted courtside at the Lakers' loss to the Heat. However, the veteran comedian made the appearance amid a wave of backlash against him. First, there were the comments made about him by Katt Williams, who accused Cedric of stealing a joke from him. "1998, I’m doing this joke…Cedric comes to The Comedy Store, he watches me in the audience, he comes backstage, he tells me what a great job I did and how much he loves the joke. Two years later, he’s doing that as his last joke on The [Original] Kings Of Comedy and he’s doing it verbatim, he just changed my car into a spaceship," Williams said. However, he also noted that Cedric had apologized to him.
Furthermore, fans appeared to track down more evidence of joke stealing. One social media user found that Cedric's "Bamanicious" joke was lifted almost word-for-word from the 1980s sitcom Designing Women. This has led people to wonder just how much of Cedric's content is actually jokes taken directly from other sources.
Katt Williams Goes After Chris Tucker
Of course, Cedric was just one of many comedy figures who caught flak from Williams. Williams named Chris Tucker as one of the "great people" the comedy world had lost before the release of Friday 4. While Tucker is very much alive and well, Williams lamented that "the Chris Tucker we got now is the Epstein Island Chris Tucker". Tucker was one of the many celebrities who was revealed to have traveled at least once to the private island of Jeffrey Epstein. The first batch of unsealed names was made public on January 3, with the full list of unredacted names expected to be revealed by the end of the week. Other names include Bill Clinton, Bill Richardson, Donald Trump, Kevin Spacey, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Cameron Diaz. However, Williams' comments appear to imply that he was previously aware of Tucker's connection to Epstein.
Furthermore, Williams went after Tucker for his opposition to marijuana and his friendship with Michael Jackson. “[Chris Tucker] don’t smoke weed like that. He’s in the church. He was Michael Jackson’s best friend. Michael Jackson called him ‘Christmas.’ You ever met a man that gave you a little nickname like that?” Williams told Shannon Sharpe.