Kevin Hart made an appearance on The Ellen Degeneres Show to promote his upcoming comedy-drama, The Upside, which co-stars Bryan Cranston. Of course, he couldn’t leave the show without first addressing the Oscars controversy which was sparked by unearthed, homophobic tweets.
They caused an uproar and Hart consequently stepped down from his hosting gig. But according to Ellen, the Academy is still interested in the comedian hosting the ceremony.
“They were like, ‘Oh my God, we want him to host,'” DeGeneres said. “‘We feel like maybe it was misunderstood or it was handled wrong or maybe we said the wrong thing, but we want him to host. Whatever we could do, we would be thrilled.’”
The talk show host, who is a former Oscars host herself, defended Hart calling Internet trolls “a small group of people being very loud.” But he was still hesitant and swore that the tweets surfacing shortly after his gig was announced were a direct attack on him.
“To any attack, there’s another side,” Hart said. “There’s always an A-side and there’s a B-side. On my side, I say, openly, I’m wrong for my past words. I said it. I understand that. I know that. My kids know when their dad messes up, I’m in front of it because I want to be an example so they know what to do. In this case, it’s tough for me because it was an attack. This wasn’t an accident; it wasn’t a coincidence. It wasn’t a coincidence that the day after I received the job that tweets just manifested from 2008. To go through 40,000 tweets to get back to 2008. That’s an attack. That’s a malicious attack on my character. That’s an attack to end me. That’s not an attack to just stop the Oscars.”
Ellen kept pushing through because she knows how bad Kevin Hart wants to host the Oscars.
“But [the trolls] gonna win, if you don’t host the Oscars,” DeGeneres said. “So for you to stand up and say, ’No,’ whoever you are…who knows who this person is or people? Who cares? You can’t let them destroy you and they can’t destroy you because you have too much talent. And for them to stop you from your dream, to do what you wanted to do—and what you have a right to do, what you should be doing—it’s why they haven’t found another host. I think they were secretly hoping that you would come back.”
Do you think Kevin Hart should hop back on board and host the Oscars?
