Comedy Central every year dishes out a roast on a random celebrity, filled with comedic zingers and hilarity throughout the broadcast. This year the 'Comedy Central Roast on Roseanne' promised to crank out the humor, but when comedian Jeff Ross stepped out on stage, his opening line was met with anything but laughs.

When Jeff Ross first appeared on the red carpet for the event he was already turning heads, mainly due to his Joe Paterno outfit accompanied by two young men wearing nothing but towels and football helmets. That wasn't the bad part. Actually, we find that kind of hilarious. It wasn't until he made his way to the mic in the middle of the roast when things took an immediate turn for the worse.

TMZ reports that Ross uttered the following; “Seth, congratulations. This is actually a great night for you ... you haven’t gotten this much attention since you shot all those people in Aurora. ... I’m kidding. You are not like James Holmes. At least he did something in a movie theater that people remember!” You can imagine that nobody in the audience took this too well.

After the failed attempt at humor on a rather dark and recent subject was put out in the open, comedienne Roseanne Barr defended her roaster (via EW.com).

“You do take a risk to say anything these days. Yeah, there are people that are just short of stalkers, waiting for you to f— up so they can do their self-righteous thing. Comics are the bravest of the brave. A lot of comics who do cross-the-line stuff — there’s a lot to be scared about… We’re certainly not gonna f—ing shut up. We’re not gonna go that way.”

So what do you think? Is it too soon for comedians like Jeff Ross to be poking fun at what is a sore subject for this nation? Why or why not?

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