Comedian Kevin Hart, who stepped down as Oscars host after the resurfacing of past comedic , homophobic tweets, taped an interview with DeGeneres on Thursday that was originally due to air on Monday, but the producers of Ellen deemed it newsworthy enough to shift it to the prime Friday show.
In the interview, Hart says he is “evaluating” reprising his role as the 2019 Oscars host after DeGeneres called the Academy to vouch for him. “I called them, I said, ‘Kevin’s on, I have no idea if he wants to come back and host, but what are your thoughts?’ And they were like, ‘Oh my God, we want him to host! We feel like that maybe he misunderstood or it was handled wrong. Maybe we said the wrong thing, but we want him to host. Whatever we can do we would be thrilled. And he should host the Oscars.'”
DeGeneres went on to defend Hart against what he felt was a malicious social media campaign to derail his career and urged him to rethink his decision on stepping down as Oscars host. “As a gay person, I am sensitive to all of that. You’ve already expressed that it’s not being educated on the subject, not realizing how dangerous those words are, not realizing how many kids are killed for being gay or beaten up every day,” said DeGeneres.
She added: “You have grown, you have apologized, you are apologizing again right now. You’ve done it. Don’t let those people win — host the Oscar!
Well done Ellen.
Ellen gives men
a second chance