Kevin Hart said he is over the controversy surrounding homophobic tweets he made years ago that ultimately cost him his hosting gig at the Academy Awards.
The comedian, who is making the rounds to promote his movie "The Upside," appeared on "Good Morning America" Wednesday morning. He was interviewed by Michael Strahan, who took the opportunity to ask him about the fallout from the homophobic tweets he posted a decade ago.
“I’m over it,” Hart said multiple times throughout the interview.
Strahan continued to push Hart on the fallout and his comments.
“I’m done with it. It gets no more energy from me,” he said. “That’s why I said, for the last time, I’m addressing this. There’s no more conversation about it. I'm literally —I’m over that. I'm over the moment, and I’m about today. So, if it’s accepted, great. If not, it’s nothing I can control. Some things are left out of your hands. So I’m done with it. I’m over it. That’s where I’m personally at.”
Strahan went on to ask Hart how he’s changed since making those comments.
“I’m not saying how I changed anymore. I’m not saying what I've done and what the new me is,” Hart said. “I’m not giving no more explanation of who I am. I’ve done it. I’ve done it several times. I’ve tweeted it. I’ve talked about it when I went on ‘Ellen.’ I said it on my radio show. I’m just done. So you have to come to a point where you know that you’ve given all that you possibly can. And if that's received, then great — then that means we've achieved something. If it’s not, there's nothing I can do.”
On his “Straight from the Hart” radio show, Hart said he would make sure he doesn’t say anything offensive to the LGBTQ community in the future. He also apologized again for his tweets.
"Once again, Kevin Hart apologizes for his remarks that hurt members of the LGBTQ community. I apologize," he said on his show Monday.
“I really had to dive into the whole thing, even the tweets,” Hart went on to say. “These weren’t words that I said to gay individuals. I didn’t say these words to people, at the time, this was our dumb asses on Twitter going back and forth with each other. We thought it was okay to talk like that because that’s how we talked to one another. In that, you go, (expletive)! This is wrong now.”
Hart continued, "Now we're in a space where I'm around people of the LGBTQ community, and I'm now aware of how these words make them feel and why they say, 'That (expletive) hurt because of what I've been through.'"
Despite Hart's emphasis that he's apologized multiple times, a Vulture investigation said he acknowledged criticism about his homophobic jokes and tweets but he hadn't necessarily apologized for them until the Oscars controversy and his interview with Ellen DeGeneres.
Credit: Matt Winkelmeyer
Credit: Matt Winkelmeyer
As for the Oscars, Hart definitively said he would not be hosting this year.
“Unfortunately, I can’t do it this year,” he said. “It’s not going to happen ... The public has made it a conversation of today, but I have removed myself from the conversation. It's just not right. It's not in God's plan right now.”
The Academy has yet to announce if there will be a host for the Oscars.
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