Kevin Hart recently appeared on Ellen to promote his upcoming movie the Upside co-starring Bryan Cranston. Hart and DeGeneres spent the majority of their conversation on the 2008 homophobic tweets that caused him to resign from hosting the Oscars within days.
While speaking on the matter Ellen said she reached out to the Academy to re-hire Hart. The awarding body is still interested, according to DeGeneres.
“They were like, ‘Oh my God, we want him to host,'” DeGeneres said. “‘We feel like maybe it was misunderstood or it was handled wrong or maybe we said the wrong thing, but we want him to host. Whatever we could do, we would be thrilled.’”
DeGeneres, who hosted the Oscars in 2014, defended Hart by calling the internet critics “a small group of people being very loud.” Hart believes that the offending comments popping up right after his hosting job was announced were a concentrated attack.
“To any attack, there’s another side,” Hart said. “There’s always an A-side and there’s a B-side. On my side, I say, openly, I’m wrong for my past words. I understand that. My kids know when their dad messes up, I’m in front of it because I want to be an example so they know what to do. In this case, it’s tough for me because it was an attack. This wasn’t an accident; it wasn’t a coincidence. It wasn’t a coincidence that the day after I received the job that tweets just manifested from 2008.
“To go through 40,000 tweets to get back to 2008. That’s an attack. A malicious attack on my character. An attack to end me. That’s not an attack to just stop the Oscars.”
DeGeneres still believes Hart should take back the job, saying the trolls will win if he doesn’t host. Her opinion was strong enough for Hart to consider “evaluating” taking the Academy up on their offer.
You can watch the full exchange below!
I believe in forgiveness. I believe in second chances. And I believe in @KevinHart4real. pic.twitter.com/oJxfGXhU4P
— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) January 4, 2019
H/T: Complex