Ellen’s hype for Hart draws mixed reviews
Social media responses question her calling comic’s critics ‘haters’
Prodded by Ellen DeGeneres, comic Kevin Hart says he’ll reconsider his decision to step down as host of the Academy Awards. Hart had backed away two days after being named host last month when some homophobic tweets he had made a decade ago resurfaced. But DeGeneres urged him to host the show during an interview that aired Friday on her talk show.
The motion picture academy has not named a replacement host for its Feb. 24 awards show.
“You have grown,” DeGeneres told him. “You have apologized. You’re apologizing again right now. You’ve done it. Don’t let these people win. Host the Oscars.”
She applied subtle pressure by saying after one commercial break, “We’re back with this year’s Oscars host, Kevin Hart.”
Hart told her that “you have put a lot of things on my mind” and that he would think about their conversation.
If there’s a campaign to get him back, it couldn’t have started more slickly: on the hugely successful talk show run by one of Hollywood’s most prominent gay celebrities, who hosted the Oscars herself in 2007.
DeGeneres said she called the academy this week to urge that Hart be brought back and was told that officials would be “thrilled” if he returned. An academy representative did not immediately return a message for comment.
Hart told her that when his old messages resurfaced, “what was once the brightest light ever just got real dark.” He initially said he wouldn’t apologize because he had addressed the issue several times. But given an ultimatum to apologize, he did so and stepped down.
He also told DeGeneres that he understood his past remarks were “wrong” but spoke at length about what he believed were the motives of those calling him out.
“That’s an attempt to end me,” he said. “That’s not an attack to just stop the Oscars … Somebody has to take a stand against the … trolls.”
The tweets in question, dating from as recently as 2011, include jokes about violently stopping his son from engaging in “gay” behaviour. Another tweet reads, “why does (Damien Dante Wayans’) profile pic look like a gay bill board for AIDS?”
A Guardian article published shortly after Hart’s Oscar announcement went beyond his Twitter account, pointing to a 2010 comedy special in which Hart does a bit about how his “biggest fear” is his son growing up to be gay. “Keep in mind, I’m not homophobic. I have nothing against gay people. Be hap- py. Do what you want to do. But me, being a heterosexual male, if I can prevent my son from being gay, I will,” Hart said in the routine.
In a 2015 interview with Rolling Stone, Hart was asked about that joke, which he said was about his own insecurities, adding that “I wouldn’t tell that joke today, because when I said it, the times weren’t as sensitive as they are now. I think we love to make big deals out of things that aren’t necessarily big deals because we can. These things become public spectacles. So why set yourself up for failure?”
DeGeneres received some resistance on social media. Comedian Ryan Houlihan took issue with DeGeneres’ use of the word “haters.”
“Ellen: Listen gay people, when I need you to help me get back on TV, you’re my community but when you don’t want to watch my homophobic friend, you’re ‘haters,’ ” he tweeted. “First, the people who brought up Kevin Hart’s past tweets — like me — were not, as Ellen characterized, ‘haters,’ ” tweeted BuzzFeed reporter Adam B. Vary. “The host of the Oscars had made anti-gay jokes, and (LGBTQ) people who love the Oscars were legitimately startled to see just how harsh his words were. It wasn’t a … mob of people out to get Kevin Hart.” DeGeneres responded on Twitter: “I believe in forgiveness. I believe in second chances.”