Sorry, Oscars: It’s a no from Kevin Hart.
The stand-up icon and star of Netflix’s action comedy Lift was famously set to host the Academy Awards back in 2019, when old tweets and stand-up routines that were said to be homophobic resurfaced.
After apologizing, the gig was reportedly offered to him again, but Hart ultimately refused to step up to the podium.
To Sky News, Hart said he hasn’t changed his mind.
“Whatever little hope you had, I want to destroy it right now,” he maintained. “Those gigs aren’t good gigs for comics.”
The previous host of the BET Awards and MTV’s Movie and TV Awards expressed his hosting days are over.
“It’s no shot to the Oscars, no shot to the Globes or anything else,” he noted. “Those just aren’t comedy-friendly environments anymore.”
Kevin said of the Academy Awards, “I think they got it right one year where it was like just a bunch of personalities acting as the hosts and that’s a nice thing … different people get to be responsible for act one, act two, act three, but you know, the days of it being a room for a comic, those days are done.”
Hart did, however, salute previous hosts who “cracked the code and done it right early on.”
He said, “[Y]ou know, the Chris Rocks of the world, the Billy Crystals of the world, the girls we’ve had like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler. Ricky Gervais.”
Kev continued, “It’s not the gig that it was of old. It’s too much pressure on the idea of a comic and what’s jokes and not jokes. So, it’s tough.”
Hart’s comments come just days after stand-up Jo Koy caught flak for jokes he made hosting the Golden Globes.
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