Netflix is facing calls to lose subscribers after Michael Che included jokes about Charlie Kirk’s assassination in his new stand-up special. Viewers responding to coverage of the comedian urged people to drop the streaming service and boycott “Saturday Night Live,” where Che co-anchors “Weekend Update.” Other commenters said they’d stopped watching the NBC program or no longer wanted to support it.
“Michael Che: Shot in Minnesota” premiered on October 13th, 2026, following four performances recorded at First Avenue in Minneapolis in August. The 59-minute special opens with footage of downtown Minneapolis and the venue’s exterior before moving into Che’s performance. His opening material addresses Kirk’s assassination, President Donald Trump and Che’s defense of using the “R-word.”
The production is Che’s third solo Netflix special, following “Michael Che Matters” in 2016 and “Michael Che: Shame the Devil” in 2021. Che also directed the new release and served as an executive producer alongside Matthew Vaughan. Netflix markets the TV-MA program as covering racism, marriage and free speech, and categorizes it as political comedy and social commentary.
Fox News reported Che said: “I feel like Erika Kirk on this stage. That’s no disrespect to the Kirks, by the way.” Che’s opening routine also involves claiming he hadn’t known who Charlie Kirk was before his murder. He jokes that he initially confused news about Kirk with the “Star Trek” character.
Che defends using the “R-word” and connects his argument to Trump’s political success. He suggests that abandoning the insult left people without the language to respond to the president. Turning to his Minneapolis audience, he portrays Minnesota as repeatedly fighting groups he describes with the slur, then accuses those groups of trying to strip away people’s rights.
In an interview with MPR News, Che discussed the title’s connection to violence and explained his caution about invoking individual victims of killings by police or federal agents. He said naming them in jokes could disrupt the atmosphere he wanted for the performance. “I didn’t want to invoke those names in a joking way and sort of kill what we were trying to do.”
Watch the official trailer for Che’s Netflix special here:
"*" indicates required fields
The boycott comments appeared beneath a Fox News post describing Che’s Kirk jokes and attacks on Trump supporters. One X user commented, “Another reason to drop Netflix!!” A separate account targeted Che’s television program, calling for viewers to abandon the show: “Time to boycott SNL again!”
Another user urged people to withhold their attention from the programs, commenting, “Cancel that 🤏🏾 prick. DO NOT WATCH THESE PROGRAMS PEOPLE!” A fourth account described previously looking forward to watching Che and his fellow performer, saying, “Well, there goes SNL I used to look forward to Michael, and the dude married to the super hot famous avenger chick.” That user added, “I used to look forward especially on Fridays I guess not anymore because Michael screwed it all up,” before objecting to discussions of “sex religion or politics.”
A fifth commenter described watching part of the special and criticized Che’s performance. The account also said it had already stopped watching “Saturday Night Live,” despite previously following the program regularly. The user said, “I watched some of it. Hes not funny at all. I dont watch SNL anymore. I used to never miss an episode.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video.