Comedy Central’s The Roast of Justin Bieber drew strong numbers Monday, ranking as the net’s third most popular ever and standing as the night’s No. 1-rated program in key male demos.
The roast, aired March 30 and featuring Kevin Hart as roast master, averaged a 2.6 rating/9 share in adults 18-49 and 4.4 million viewers overall from 10 p.m. to midnight, according to Nielsen.
The tune-in far exceeded the roasts in recent years of Donald Trump in March 2011 (3.48 million), James Franco in September 2013 (3.11 million) and Roseanne Barr in August 2012 (2.64 million).
Watch Justin Bieber Roast -Full video.
Charlie Sheen’s roast in September 2011, which drew 6.43 million viewers, remains the most-watched of 14 roasts to date for Comedy Central. The only other one to outdraw #BieberRoast on Monday was Jeff Foxworthy in 2005.
The “Roast of Justin Bieber” was also a big draw on social media, ranking No. 1 among all shows on television Monday with over 1.3 million mentions tweets and more than 40 roast-related trending topics worldwide. Nearly 2 million people generated over 3 million posts, comments, likes and shares regarding the Roast of Justin Bieber, aka #BieberRoast, on Facebook.
#BieberRoast topics included Justin’s rocky romance with Selena Gomez and his numerous run-ins with the law. Shaquille O’Neal, Martha Stewart, Ludacris, Snoop Dogg and Hannibal Buress were among the roasters.
Justin is the youngest person to be roasted on the network.