Kevin Hart Backs Out Of Academy Awards Amid Backlash Over Old Tweets

 

Actor and comedian Kevin Hart has stepped down from plans to host the upcoming Academy Awards ceremony, following public outcry over his past homophobic tweets and comedy routines. The Academy named Hart host of the Oscars and less than 24 hours later, Hart was discovered to be rapidly deleting his past anti-gay social media posts amid a growing uproar. Hart initially refused to apologize over the comments, before offering his resignation from the Oscars ceremony with an apology.

Soon after Hart announced he would be hosting the Academy Awards, the actor began to delete a series of old tweets after twitter users began retweeting his past homophobic comments.  One Twitter user wrote, alongside screenshots of Kevin’s past tweets, “I wonder when Kevin Hart is gonna start deleting all his old tweets.”   One of the controversial tweets from 2011 read: “Yo 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’.”  Hart made a similar comment about wanting his son to be heterosexual in a stand-up special in 2010.

Another Twitter sleuth went to the great lengths of searching every time Kevin used the words “Fag,” “homo” or “gay.”  They realized the comedian “seems to have basically stopped tweeting those words after 2011 — i.e. the year his first stand-up movie became a hit.”  While Hart has adamantly denied being homophobic, prior statements about his feelings seem conflicting to some. In a 2015 profile for Rolling Stone, he once said one of his “biggest fears is my son growing up and being gay.”  “Keep in mind, I’m not homophobic… 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,” he previously explained.

After the initial backlash, Hart shared an Instagram video where he said, “Stop looking for reasons to be negative…stop searching for reasons to be angry…I swear I wish you guys could see/feel/understand the mental place that I am in. I am truly happy people… there is nothing that you can do to change that….NOTHING. I work hard on a daily basis to spread positivity to all…with that being said. If you want to search my history or past and anger yourselves with what u find that is fine with me. I ‘m almost 40 years old and I’m in love with the man that I am becoming,” he continued. “You LIVE and YOU LEARN & YOU GROW & YOU MATURE. I live to Love…. Please take your negative energy and put it into something constructive. Please…What’s understood should never have to be said. I LOVE EVERYBODY..ONCE AGAIN EVERYBODY. If you choose to not believe me then that’s on you…Have a beautiful day.”

The actor and comedian later announced that he’s dropping out of his scheduled hosting gig at the Oscars rather than issue a formal apology for the series of homophobic, years-old tweets.  “So I just got a call from the Academy, and that call basically said, ‘Kevin, apologize for your tweets of old, or we’re going to have to move on and find another host,’ talking about the tweets from 2009, 2010,” Hart said in a video he posted to Instagram on Thursday night, in which he appeared to be referencing tweets in which he used homophobic slurs. “I chose to pass. I passed on the apology. The reason I passed is because I’ve addressed this several times.”

After the Instagram confession, Hart eventually issued an apology on Twitter stating that he’s sorry for hurting anyone and that he’s “evolving.” He then said, “I sincerely apologize to the LGBTQ community for my insensitive words from my past.”