Kevin Hart once again apologized to the LGBT community for anti-gay jokes and tweets from a decade ago. The 39-year-old comedian pulled out of hosting the 2019 Academy Awards following the public backlash to his old tweets dating back to 2008 and 2009.
Hart initially rejected the Academy’s demands to apologize, saying he’s apologized multiple times already. But on Monday, Hart apologized again during a discussion on his SiriusXM radio show Straight from the Heart.
Speaking in the third person, the Night School star said, “Once again, Kevin Hart apologizes for his remarks that hurt members of the LGBTQ community.”
But he affirmed that he still doesn’t approve of his son growing up to be ghey.
Quoting one of his standup jokes, in which he said he would beat his son if he saw him playing with his sister’s dollhouse, Hart paraphrased: “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!”
Acknowledging that times have changed, Hart said he regrets tweeting his thoughts on the microblogging website.
“These weren’t words that I said to gay individuals. I didn’t say these words to [ghey] 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, f–k! This is wrong now.”
The father of two sons and a daughter said he is willing to help Black people become more accepting of members of the LGBT community.
“I think that in the times that we’re living in, we have to be understanding and [be] accepting of people and change.”
READ ALSO: Kevin Hart to Skip Academy Awards After Don Lemon Rebuke
CNN anchorman Don Lemon, who is openly ghey, rebuked Hart for appearing on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” on Friday. He accused Hart of insulting the LGBT community by portraying himself as a victim.
Ellen DeGeneres defended Hart during the episode, telling him to ignore “haters” in the LGBT community who seek to destroy his comedy career.
In a scathing commentary on his CNN show, Lemon, 52, condemned Hart’s joke about his son. “That was a joke to Kevin. The truth is, that is a reality for many little boys in the United States. Somewhere a black dad is beating his black son.”
Lemon went on to say how his friend, filmmaker Lee Daniels, was “thrown into a trash can” by his dad for being gay and claimed Hart needed to do more to challenge homophobia [in the Black community] before he is forgiven for his past remarks.
GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis told Deadline.com she reached out to Hart’s camp multiple times, but has not gotten a response.
“Kevin Hart shouldn’t have stepped down; he should have stepped up,” said Ellis. “Hart’s apology to LGBTQ people is an important step forward, but he missed a real opportunity to use his platform and the Oscars stage to build unity and awareness. We would still welcome that conversation with him.”
Last week, a source told Variety magazine that Hart changed his mind about returning to the Oscars hosting gig. The Academy bosses expressed an interest in having him return. But Hart said hosting the Oscar Awards would be a distraction.
