Deon Cole kicked off the 57th NAACP Image Awards with spicy jokes and name-dropping! His opening prayer had the audience gasping, laughing and clapping it up. But not everyone found his jokes sweet! Late Sunday, Deon shared some reactions to his comments, namely about Nicki Minaj and Tourette’s. And spoiler alert: it’s all hate mail with lil’ extra hate sprinkled in.
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Deon Cole Let The Jokes Fly At The NAACP Image Awards
The jokey jabs that landed Deon Cole in hot water with the Barbz (Nicki Minaj fans) and Tourette’s advocates happened right at the start! The comedian opened the show with a non-serious prayer. He started by asking the Lord to bless Teyana Taylor, and to keep her single and away from extremely handsome men so the “average man…woman” can get a chance. Taylor was in the audience, cracking up!
Later in his prayer, Cole asked God to bless Nicki Minaj. The audience immediately laughed as her picture appeared on the stage screen.
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“She’s been going through a lot lately Lord…hasn’t been herself Lord. I believe whatever’s in her a** is affecting her brain Lord. Take it out her a** Lord, we bind that spirit in her a** Lord.”
Afterward, Cole joked about how anyone with Tourette’s in the audience should read the NAACP Image Awards room before a tic. As previously reported, Tourette’s campaigner, John Davidson, recently caught heat after shouting the n-word as Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo took the stage at the BAFTA Awards. Cole’s joke was a reference to that firestorm!
RELATED: Tourette’s Advocate John Davidson Breaks His Silence After Shouting N-Word During BAFTA Awards (UPDATE)
Comedian Reveals Hate Mail In His DMs
After his prayer jokes, Deon Cole hopped on Instagram to show how folks behind IG pages were poppin’ off in his DMs. Some of the responses appeared to come from Barbz, per their word choices while others seemed offended by the comment about people with Tourette’s reading the room. From calling Deon the n-word (hard -er at times) to wishing death on him, his DMs put the HATE in hate mail. He didn’t caption the post, but nearly 8,000 people weighed in on the multi-slide insults, including Jamie Foxx, who wrote: “Bro I love you! You are brilliant.”
BET Releases Statement In Support Of Deon Cole
As the hate mail went viral, BET stepping in to show Deon Cole some love! It shared a post on Instagram, tagging accounts for the comedian, the NAACP and the NAACP Image Awards. All the photos featured Cole on the stage, or posing with other celebs.
“Comedians are truth tellers. Tasked with making the hard parts digestible, bringing laughs to our darkest days, equal parts intelligence and humor, @deoncole, what you did last night was a lesson in showmanship. Thank you for being our #NAACPImageAwards host for the second year in a row. We see you.”
The post received over 1,800 comments and more than 16,000 likes, even Jamie Foxx slid by that comment section, too. He wrote, “Incredible job!!!” See additional comments below.
