NESN Can’t Broadcast the Roast of David Ortiz Because Gronk’s Jokes Were Too Offensive (Video)

Last week a number of Boston celebrities gathered at the House of Blues to roast former Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, who had just had his number retired at Fenway Park. Included in this group were comedians such as Bill Burr, Lenny Clarke, Josh Wolfe and Sarah Tiana, as well as athletes like Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia and Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, plus Avengers actor Anthony Mackie.

The good news is that all proceeds from the event went to Big Papi’s charity for children. The bad news is that the general public will never see the roast in its entirety because it was way to racist, sexist, and obscene for television.

NESN had planned to air an edited version of the event over the weekend. However, they pulled the plug on that because there was no way to edit the jokes enough to make them suitable for basic cable.

While the professional comedians told their fair share of off-color jokes, Rob Gronkowski’s ten minutes at the mic stole the spotlight. He made a racist joke about Mackie, a sexist incest joke about Tiana, an anti-Semitic joke about Wolfe, and, obviously, a bunch of references to porn and various sex acts.

The folks at Boston.com posted an extremely NSFW video of Gronk’s performance on Facebook. Take a look:

Lots of people were outraged by Gronk’s questionable jokes. However, comedian Chris Wolf defended the tight end in an interview with WEEI.

“The only reason Rob’s name is being put in this is because he’s Rob Gronkowski,” Wolf said. “Compared to the rest of us, he was tame. But you know, TMZ doesn’t get any clicks if they say, ‘Josh Wolf went over the line.’ It’s all about clicks. He did what we asked him to do. The controversy is so ridiculous.”

So was Gronk really that offensive, or are people overreacting? I have my own opinions, but I’m going to let the experts in the comments section tackle this one.

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