Fiancée of late NFL player Aaron Hernandez has opened up and condemned fellow NFL stars from Tom Brady’s Netflix feature, The Greatest Roast of All Time, for making insensitive jokes about the New England Patriots player’s suicide death. Shayanna Jenkins expressed her disgust over the piece that aired on Sunday, May 5.
Jenkins, who is the mother of Hernandez’s only child, an 11-year-old daughter named Avielle Janelle Hernandez, said she was deeply disappointed by the display in Brady’s Netflix special. She referenced the fact that her late fiancé ended up being the punchline of more than one joke made by several different people, including Tom Brady, Julian Edelman, Nikki Glaser and more.
Jenkins heartbreakingly told the outlet, “It’s sad that I’m trying to raise my children in such a cruel world.”
During Tom Brady’s Netflix special, The Greatest Roast of All Time, several participants took the stage and negatively joked about New England Patriots alum Aaron Hernandez during the three-hour-long roast. Both NFL star Tom Brady and Aaron Hernandez’s former teammate Julian Edelman referenced Hernandez’s suicide death directly and indirectly.
Clips from the Netflix special have been going viral for their shocking content. One viral clip shows Julian Edelman telling a joke about his former teammate Aaron Hernandez. He begins the clip by talking about Rob Gronkowski. Edelman said, “Everyone always asks me, ‘How big Gronk’s d*ck is.’ Now, don’t get me wrong, it gets the job done. But, there was this other Patriots tight end.” Edelman waited a moment and looked up at the ceiling before continuing, “Now, he was hung.”
Although the crowd in the clip already began to react, Edelman tried to calm them down with his hands, telling them, “Think about it, think about it.”
Nikki Glaser also made a joke about Aaron Hernandez. She joked at the expense of another NFL player, Randy Moss, asking him why he didn’t have a championship ring.
She said, “Now, please give it up for zero-time Super Bowl champion Randy Moss. I’m sorry, Randy. Why don’t you have a ring? What the hell man? You’re one of the best! Drew Bledsoe has a ring! Aaron Hernandez had a ring.. around his neck! Like, what’s going on?!”
Professional comedian Tony Hinchcliffe also got on the trend of making out-of-pocket jokes.
Hinchcliffe said, “Tom is afraid of the [New York] Giants, which is why Kevin Hart is hosting tonight. All night, he’s been using the stool that Aaron Hernandez kicked out from under himself.”
Tom Brady himself partook in the insensitive treatment of Aaron Hernandez. He decided to make light of Hernandez’s legal history, which notably includes a murder case of which he was found guilty before he then took his own life in prison. During the Netflix special, Brady said, “The bar for the New England Patriots was pretty low back then.” He proceeded to list off the requirements, stating, “Block. Catch. Don’t murder.”
Following the airing of The Greatest Roast of All Time, Jenkins sat down with TMZ to condemn all of those who made jokes about Hernandez’s suicide.
She continued to explain that despite Hernandez being gone, their jokes and opinions about him still affect their daughter, as she’s old enough to understand what happened. Jenkins expressed her disappointment with the way the jokes were handled.
Avielle’s hero is her late father, and Jenkins is worried about her daughter’s reaction to eventually seeing Sunday’s roast special. She even expressed that she believed jokes about Aaron Hernandez should have been off limits entirely because Avielle seeing “all of these grown men and fellow Patriots alum joked about his life and death” will only complicate things for her.
