Advertisement
Dublin: 9 °C Tuesday 19 March, 2024
Nick Cannon

Here's why it doesn't make sense that Nick Cannon's calling out homophobic celebs on Twitter to defend Kevin Hart

Kevin Hart lost his job hosting the Oscars because he refused to apologise for old tweets.

Kevin Hart Armando Gallo Armando Gallo

AS YOU PROBABLY know by now, Kevin Hart was supposed to host the 2019 Oscars. 

That was until, some tweets from his past resurfaced, in which he made comments like “as gay as a billboard for AIDS”, “fat faced f*g” and “If my son comes home and 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’ (sic). The tweets were from 2011, and in a comedy show from 2010, Kevin made similar comments in which he said that one of his biggest fears is his son growing up gay. 

When the organisers of next year’s Oscars caught wind of these tweets, they reportedly gave him an “ultimatum”, as Hart explained on Instagram. Kevin said that he was asked to apologise for his old tweets, or the Oscars would find another host. The 39-year-old said:

I have addressed this several times. This is not the first time this has come up, I’ve addressed this. I’ve spoken on it. I’ve said where the rights and wrongs were. I said who I am now versus who I was then, I’ve done it. I’ve done it. 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. The same energy that went into finding those old tweets could have been the same energy put into finding the response to the questions that have been asked years after years after years. 

He ended his statement by saying, “I’m not gonna do it, man. I’m gonna be me”, before thanking the Academy for the opportunity and by saying that if it goes away because he refused to apologise, “no harm, no foul.” 

I know who I am & so do the people closest to me. #LiveLoveLaugh

A post shared by Kevin Hart (@kevinhart4real) on

Just as Kevin said that the energy spent finding the tweets could be spent finding his responses, the energy he put into this bizarre video could have been spent calling up his PR person and telling them to tweet out another apology. Ultimately, Kevin ended up apologising anyway, when he made his announcement about stepping down. 

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. I sincerely apologise to the LGBTQ community for my insensitive words from my past. I’m sorry that I hurt people… I am evolving and want to continue to do so. My goal is to bring people together not tear us apart. Much love and appreciation to the Academy. I hope we can meet again.

None of it makes sense. If he was going to apologise while announcing this, why couldn’t he just have apologised at the start? Despite the fact that Kevin had said “no harm, no foul” if he loses his job for refusing to apologise, plenty of his friends and fans were upset that he lost the gig. 

Nick Cannon went as far as rounding up all of the successful white female comedians who had previously used homophobic language in their tweets to draw attention to the “hypocrisy” of Kevin’s removal as host of the Oscars.

First he started with Chelsea Handler…

Then he searched Sarah Silverman’s old tweets…

And finally, he tweeted an old Amy Schumer tweet.

Of course all of these tweets are unacceptable and immature, and the right thing for Sarah Silverman, Chelsea Handler and Amy Schumer to do would be to apologise. The argument here is that white women can get away with homophobia more easily than a black man can and there’s most likely some truth in that. However, they may not have received the same backlash as Kevin (yet), but most of us reading this are only just being made aware of these tweets for the very first time right now. 

It’s worth noting that none of these women have been asked to replace Kevin as host of the Oscars, either. So, the argument is quite irrelevant. Sure these women aren’t losing out on any work, but for the most part, neither is Kevin Hart. 

Kevin’s comments might have affected a job opportunity this time around, but in the years since Kevin wrote his homophobic tweets, his career has been booming. Over the course of the last seven years, he’s been in about 25 movies, in fact. He hosted the BET Awards in 2011, and was involved with 9 TV shows on top of all of those movies and has been around the world with numerous comedy tours. In 2013, his tour Let Me Explain was released in movie theatres and his What Now? tour was also theatrically released in 2016. 

Kevin Hart’s past isn’t haunting him in any way, and he’s not really being punished for refusing to be politically correct, as Nick Cannon seems to believe. Hart made $57 million this year, according to Forbes, so he’s really not going to suffer that badly because he chose not to apologise until it was too late. 

DailyEdge is on Instagram!

Your Voice
Readers Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic. Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy here before taking part.
Leave a Comment
    Submit a report
    Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
    Thank you for the feedback
    Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.

    Leave a commentcancel