On Monday, Kevin Hart offered up an apology for the past homophobic tweets that led to him stepping down from his Oscars hosting gig (prior to briefly considering a comeback before reportedly deciding to stay out of it again). Hart spoke of the controversy on his SiriusXM show Straight to the Hart, which was set to air on his Laugh Out Loud Radio channel on Monday evening.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the comedian expressed his regret after stating that his words from previous apologies were "chopped up."
"I will say this, and I want to make this very clear," Hart said. "Once again, Kevin Hart apologizes for his remarks that hurt members of the LGBTQ community. I apologize."
The segment also included him discussing/quoting the joke of contention. "Here is how it starts off," he said to his associates/friends in the room. "I want to say that I have no problem with gay people. I don’t have a homophobic bone in my body. I want you to be happy, be gay, be happy.' And then I say as a heterosexual male, if I can do something to stop my son … that’s where the joke starts!"
"The only clip that I have seen all over the media is the one where I go, ‘stop! That’s gay.’"
"I really had to dive into the whole thing, even the tweets," Hart continued. “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, fuck! This is wrong now.”
He then noted the rapidly changing social landscape, saying "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 shit hurt because of what I’ve been through.'"
"So then we say, ‘Hey, man, as a group, let’s erase this shit. Hey, let’s not do this. We don’t post this shit on social media."
He then offered sympathy to the LGBT community stating that "acceptance for change" is a must. "If the fight from the LGBTQ community is equality, that’s the fight," he said. "The fight is the will and want for equality. I’m riding with you guys. I understand you."
"But in the fight for equality, that means that there has to be an acceptance for change," he continued. "If you don’t want to accept people for their change, then where are you trying to get to the equal part? Where does the equality part come in?"
THR reports that, in the complete episode, Hart suggests that honest apologies for previous mistakes can end up being misinterpreted which then leads to fruitless discussions. He summed up his feelings by saying, "I think that in the times that we’re living in, we have to be understanding and accepting of people and change."
