Kevin Hart and Ice Cube both respond to that fiery Katt Williams interview

Earlier this week, comedian Katt Williams made headlines when he gave a fiery interview on Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast, lobbing (frequently hilarious, frequently thoughtful) bombs in abundance at his various contemporaries in the comedy world. Now, two of those contemporaries have responded to Williams’ comments, with his old pal Ice Cube, and object of derision Kevin Hart, both responding to some of Williams’ rapid-fire thoughts.

The Ice Cube response was, not surprisingly, a lot more positive, and a lot more chill, given that Williams mostly spoke positively about him in the interview. Ice Cube did step in, though, to clarify a few “discrepancies” about the filming of 2002's Friday After Next, notably the topic of a rape scene focused on Williams’ character, villainous pimp Money Mike.

In a 9-minute video he posted on Twitter on Friday, Ice Cube clarified that, despite the 2002 film including multiple references to sexual assault, centered on Terry Crews’ ex-con character Damon, he never had any intention of filming a scene in which such an act was actually depicted. We suspect there might be some miscommunication here, in so far as Williams’ comments about the film, and his apparent request at the time of filming to move away from this material, seem to be centered on Damon’s attempted rape of Money Mike, which absolutely is in the movie, and is pretty violent and graphic, for all that it ends on a cartoonish note. It doesn’t sound, to us, like Williams (“this comedy involves a rape, and rape is never funny no matter who it happens to and what the circumstances are”) was stating that the scene originally ended differently; just that he protested the general idea of playing with this idea as comedy.

(Ice Cube also addressed comedian Rickey Smiley’s claims, which were disputed by Williams, that he had the part of Mike before being moved over to the film’s Santa Claus robber; “Rickey did give Money Mike a shot,” Ice Cube stated, noting that, afterward, when he saw Williams, “I just knew he was perfect for Money Mike. “ He also acknowledged that Williams hugely “enhanced” the part, noting that the character’s role was expanded because Williams was “giving us such magic.” Ice Cube did not directly address Williams’ comments about Hart, more on which in a sec, despite the fact that he and Hart are long-time friends, with Ice Cube being one of the guys who spoke about Hart when he got his star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.)

Meanwhile, Hart’s response to Williams’ comments on him were a lot more brief, and a lot more passive-aggressive—and a little tonally bizarre, given that Williams’ big takedown of the superstar is that he was an industry plant and coddled insider, rather than a hard-working comic. Were we facing such accusations, we might not respond to them in a weird little aside while pushing a trailer for our latest Netflix movie, but, then, we are not multi-millionaire Kevin Hart; early on Thursday morning, Hart wrote on Twitter, “Gotta get that anger up outcha champ….It’s honestly sad…” before referencing “Katt” in a trailer post for his new movie Lift.