Comedian Keven Hart has now expressed regret for how he handled the controversy last year in which he got booted from hosting the Oscars after members of the LGBTQ community resurfaced several offensive tweets and jokes he made years earlier.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the new Netflix documentary series, “Kevin Hart: Don’t F**k This Up,” will explore how the comedian disregarded the advice of his publicists and other members of his team, leading him to eventually conclude that he was acting “immature.”
“What I thought was going to blow over ended up becoming a bigger mess than I expected,” Hart says in the documentary.
“You need to learn how to stop and think,” Hart’s publicist tells a team member in the documentary. “He’s not used to being the person that’s not loved and cherished. He needs to just shut up and put his head down for the next few weeks…. What he needs to remember is he’s feeding 50-60 people. When he takes a sh***er, everybody takes a sh***er and that’s a big issue now.”
Kevin Hart had been slated to host the 2019 Oscars, but stepped down within 48 hours of accepting the gig after the Academy demanded he apologize for his past jokes.
“I’m not going to continue to go back and tap into the days of old when I moved on, and I’m in a completely different space in my life,” Hart said in a video on Instagram at the time. “I’m going to be me; I’m going to stand my ground.”
Hours later, Hart stepped down from his dream of hosting the Oscars and apologized to the LGBTQ community for his “insensitive words.”
“I have made the choice to step down from hosting this year’s Oscars … this is because I do not want to be a distraction on a night that should be celebrated by so many amazing talented artists,” he wrote on Twitter. “I sincerely apologize to the LGBTQ community for my insensitive words from my past.”
Nine days after his stepping down, Hart then told members of his staff at an emergency meeting that he had no desire to keep addressing the controversy, fearing he would be “making it okay to go backward.” Looking back, Hart now feels that he “missed an opportunity.”
“I missed an opportunity to say simply that I don’t condone any type of violence in any way, shape, or form to anyone for being who they are,” Hart now says. “I f***ed up…. Instead, I said, ‘I addressed it.’ I said, ‘I apologized.’ I said, ‘I talked about this already.’ I was just immature.”
“You’re not Superman. You’re not invincible. You don’t know everything. Your way is not always the right way,” Hart told the cameras. “Sometimes it’s very valuable to stop for a second and assess. I know the things that I could’ve done better. I have no problem in saying I was wrong.”
Referring to his publicity team, Hart now says, “You can’t do it by yourself. You don’t let them do their jobs by being defiant. When you’re wrong, it’s going to hurt because you’re going to look back and go, ‘f**k, I should’ve listened.'”