Why couldn’t we leave Kevin Hart in 2018? If not the whole man, why couldn’t we just leave that awful story about him losing the Oscars hosting gig because of his many homophobic comments? It would have been so nice not to have to recount his ridiculously ignorant “jokes” in this new year, but unfortunately, here we are. So let’s push through, OK? If you missed this mess, it was announced in December that Kevin would act as the host for this year’s Academy Awards. As soon as the news was announced, lots of people went “Wait, he’s made tons of offensive comments about the LGBT community, this isn’t cool.” And it’s true — he really has said some terrible things. Like, a few years ago he tweeted “If my son comes home & try’s 2 play with my daughters doll house I’m going 2 break it over his head & say n my voice ‘stop that’s gay.'” He used to have a real big habit of tweeting things like that — he called tons of people “f-g,” used “gay” as insult, that sort of thing. Once, he told someone that he looked like a “gay bill board for AIDS.” Then, in one of his comedy specials, he said that “One of my biggest fears is my son growing up and being gay. That’s a fear.” “Keep in mind, I’m not homophobic,” he insisted. “Be happy. Do what you want to do.” “But me, as a heterosexual male, if I can prevent my son from being gay, I will.” So all of those are jokes, OK? And we’re sure he thought they were all just super hilarious. But lots of people didn’t, and when those people complained about them after he became the Oscars host, Kevin turned the blame around on them by telling them to “Stop looking for reasons to be negative.” Sure, Kevin. Sure. Shortly after he said, that, he posted a video on Instagram in which he explained that the people from the Academy had called him up and basically told him to apologize or he’d be fired. Kevin Hart: I Won’t Apologize for Homophobic Jokes! He refused to apologize. His stance at the time was that he’d apologized for those kinds of statements several times already, except, oddly enough, no one has been able to find a record of that anywhere. He’s acknowledged it, sure, but just with comments like “funny is funny,” which most people with the slightest bit of awareness can agree is very far from an apology. So that was that — he stepped down from the job, and we still don’t know who the host will be . All of this was old news, except Ellen DeGeneres brought everything back up when she had Kevin on her show yesterday. In that interview, she said that she still wanted him to host because people change, even though the haters refuse to accept that. But in another new interview, this one with Variety, Kevin is making it clear that he won’t be hosting the Oscars. Not now. Not ever. “Would I ever do it?” he asked himself. “No, it’s done. It’s done.” “The moment came and it was a blessing and I was excited at the opportunity and I still am,” he said. “In my mind I got the job, it was a dream job, and things came up that simply prohibited it from happening. But I don’t believe in going backwards.” So now, he said, “When I go on that stage, it will be because I’ve somehow figured out a way to win the Oscar.” “Somehow I’ll get to the stage but it’s not going to be in this way because it just comes with such a weird clout at this point.” And then he blamed “trolls” for digging up all those horrible things he said without bothering to find the apology he made about those things as well. Because he’s still insisting he made an apology. According to him, at some point in 2011, “I had to say to a person in the LGBTQ community, ‘Hey, I understand. And you know what? I’m wrong.'” He told that person “I can’t do nothing about that joke because it was done. I can’t do nothing about the tweets because they’re out there. I was wrong. It’ll never happen again and I’m sorry.” … Did he just say that to a random person? Is that his big apology that he expects people to know about? The thing is, if he was truly sorry for saying those things, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be able to apologize again. Maybe he doesn’t want to offer an apology in every interview he does for the rest of his life, but for big instances like this, what would it hurt to make it known that you’ve changed your ignorant views? As he explained it, “I can’t put that energy into something that’s in my past. I can’t put that energy into negativity.” View Slideshow: Ellen DeGeneres Defends Kevin Hart, Gets BLASTED on Twitter Whatever, Kevin. Have it your way.
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Kevin Hart: I Will NEVER Host the Oscars!
