Tony Hinchcliffe

Tony Hinchcliffe is an American comedian who hosts the live comedy podcast Kill Tony, which is a showcase of professional and amateur comedians who take turns doing one-minute sets. Hinchcliffe is known primarily for his roast comedy, having been on the writing staff of the Comedy Central Roast series, and he appeared at the All Def Digital Roast of Snoop Dogg in 2016 and The Roast of Tom Brady in 2024. His one-hour stand-up special One Shot premiered on Netflix in 2016. Hinchcliffe is signed with United Talent Agency.

In 2021, Hinchcliffe was dropped by his agency and lost multiple endorsements after using an anti-Asian racial slur against an opening comedian during his set. In October 2024, Hinchcliffe's jokes in a monologue at a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden were criticized as racist, misogynistic, and antisemitic.

Early life

Born in Youngstown, Ohio, Hinchcliffe was raised by his single mother in the city's north side. Hinchcliffe attended Ursuline High School, where he was on the wrestling team, graduating in 2002.

Hinchcliffe told the Free Times of Columbia, South Carolina, that he grew up in a tough neighborhood and that he first developed roasting as a defense mechanism. In an interview with Cleveland.com he said that his insults also got him punched in the face on the school bus on his first day of school. On Ryan Sickler's HoneyDew podcast, Hinchcliffe revealed that his father was married to a woman other than his mother and that his birth was kept secret from her. At the same time Hinchcliffe was unaware of his father's other family until adolescence, thinking instead that his father just travelled a lot for work.

Career

In 2007, Hinchcliffe moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in comedy. He started performing stand-up at open mics at The Comedy Store in West Hollywood, California. He was hired to work the phones and the cover booth, eventually becoming a paid regular at the venue. He also started opening for comedians Joe Rogan and Jeff Ross on tour.

Hinchcliffe became known at The Comedy Store for insulting other comics and audience members during shows. He is also known for broaching uncomfortable and sensitive topics during his stand-up sets. Hinchcliffe's style of roasting and dark sense of humor appealed to fellow comedian Jeff Ross, known as the "Roastmaster General" of the television series Comedy Central Roast. Hinchcliffe refers to Ross as his mentor and he helped get Hinchcliffe his first writing jobs.

Hinchcliffe has written for the Comedy Central Roast episodes featuring James Franco, Justin Bieber and Rob Lowe. Hinchcliffe's contributions to the series include writing Martha Stewart's set for the Justin Bieber roast and Ann Coulter's set for the Rob Lowe roast. He has also written for the comedy panel show The Burn with Jeff Ross and appeared as a contestant on the first season of Jeff Ross Presents Roast Battle.

He also appeared as a roaster on the All Def Digital Roast of Snoop Dogg in 2016 and The Roast of Tom Brady in 2024.

Since 2013, Hinchcliffe has produced and hosted a podcast called Kill Tony, a weekly live show recorded at The Comedy Store. During the show, Hinchcliffe and co-host Brian Redban (of The Joe Rogan Experience and the Deathsquad Network), along with a changing panel of comedians and other celebrities, act as judges for amateur comedians. The contestants enter their names into a bucket and are selected at random throughout the show. Each selected contestant gets to perform a one-minute comedy set, followed by a discussion and critique by the panel of judges. The show aims to give young comedians a chance to showcase their talent and build their professional reputation. It sets no limits on topics the contestants can present, allowing for potentially offensive or politically incorrect performances.

Hinchcliffe's first one-hour stand-up special titled One Shot premiered on Netflix in 2016. His special was so named because it was shot in one camera take with no edits. In 2017, he headlined the Monster Energy Outbreak Tour where he toured 20 American cities in 22 days.

In September 2020, Hinchcliffe announced that he would relocate to Austin, Texas, to join Joe Rogan and Brian Redban. The Kill Tony podcast relocated to Antone's Nightclub in downtown Austin. The show relocated to Vulcan Gas Company on 6th Street in May 2021. Due to an incident that month with a racist slur, his agency WME released him as a client and Antone's announced that it would no longer work with Hinchcliffe or Kill Tony. As of 2023, the show is hosted at Joe Rogan's Austin-based comedy club Comedy Mothership.

On New Year's Eve 2023, Kill Tony hosted its first live arena show at the H-E-B Center at Cedar Park.

On October 19, 2024, Hinchcliffe appeared on ESPN's College GameDay in Austin, where he made several gay jokes which some criticized as homophobic.

Controversies

During a stand-up set in May 2021, Hinchcliffe was videotaped insulting Peng Dang, an Asian American comedian who had introduced Hinchcliffe after performing the previous set at Vulcan Gas Company in Austin. Hinchcliffe said Dang was a "filthy little fucking chink", followed with a series of Asian stereotypes in a mock Chinese accent, and lashed out at audience members who laughed at Dang's jokes, branding them as "race traitors". The video was later shown on Twitter, went viral and received criticism. As a result, Hinchcliffe was dropped by his agency WME and removed from shows scheduled with Joe Rogan in Austin, and the Austin nightclub Antone's announced that it would no longer be involved with Hinchcliffe or his Kill Tony live show. Vulture reported that during his set, Hinchcliffe stated that Chinese people came to Austin because of the bats and criticized offended audience members for "believing he was serious". Dang stated he did not receive any apology from Hinchcliffe following the incident. In an interview with Variety, Hinchcliffe stated that the line was a joke and he did nothing wrong, adding that he believed comedians should never apologize for a joke and simply continue with their work, which was the approach he took after the incident. Variety also reported that in an October 2023 episode of the podcast Triggernometry, Hinchcliffe claimed that Dang was a "Chinese spy" and the incident was an "an orchestrated attack by the Chinese media". In response to these claims, Dang questioned the logic behind a country sending a spy to pose as a stand-up comedian and shared that he continued to receive racist and hateful messages from Hinchcliffe's fans since the incident.

On October 27, 2024, Hinchcliffe spoke at a Donald Trump campaign rally in Madison Square Garden, where he denigrated Puerto Rico as a "floating island of garbage". He expressed disdain for migrants, and stated "these Latinos, they love making babies, they do. There's no pulling out. They don't do that, they come inside, just like they do to our country", and invoked several racist stereotypes. Hinchcliffe made remarks about carving watermelons with Black people and Palestinians throwing rocks in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and alluded to economic antisemitism by joking that "Jews have a hard time throwing that paper."

Hinchcliffe's remarks were widely criticized as racist, including by prominent politicians such as Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, who called him a "jackwad", and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is of Puerto Rican ancestry. Representative Ritchie Torres, also of Puerto Rican ancestry, said that he was "tempted to call Hinchcliffe racist garbage but doing so would be an insult to garbage."

In response to the Puerto Rico joke, Trump campaign senior advisor Danielle Alvarez said that it did not reflect the views of Trump or the campaign, while Donald Trump Jr. retweeted Hinchcliffe's dismissal of criticism, in which Hinchcliffe denied he was racist and accused Walz and Ocasio-Cortez of having "no sense of humor." Hinchcliffe singled out Walz for "[taking] the time out of his 'busy schedule' to analyze a joke out of context to make it seem racist". The Trump campaign distanced itself from Hinchcliffe's Puerto Rico comments.

Comedy specials