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Well, it looks like Kevin Hart actually never even apologised for those homophobic jokes
ON FRIDAY MORNING, Kevin Hart dragged those old homophobic jokes (that he insists he’s trying to leave in the past) into the spotlight again, when he made an appearance on Ellen.
Ellen DeGeneres took it upon herself to forgive Kevin Hart on behalf of the entire LGBTQ population, announcing that Kevin has her seal of approval, while labeling those who were unhappy with Kevin’s comments as “trolls”. Ellen then made it publicly known that she still wants her buddy Kevin Hart to host the Oscars this year.
When this happened, we were confused by Ellen’s behaviour and her eagerness to pander to Kevin Hart’s month-long tantrum. However, we really did want to give Kevin Hart the benefit of the doubt, and believe that he has made genuine apologies, learned from all of this and grown as a person – as he said he did.
Yet, it’s impossible to genuinely believe that Hart has learned anything or has accepted responsibility for his actions when he is so unwilling to accept the repercussions that follow. These repercussions aren’t even particularly bad. All people want is an apology. Kevin said that he’s sick and tired of apologising, as he has done it plenty of times and if people wanted an apology they could go back and have a look on Google to find all of the instances in which he apologised for his homophobic comments.
So, entertainment website Vulture went to round up all of Kevin’s old apologies, and they discovered that, sure, he had acknowledged his comments in plenty of interviews; but he has never actually said the words “I’m sorry”, or expressed any regret whatsoever.
In Vulture’s investigation, they wrote:
Vulture also referenced some massive celebrity f**k-ups from over the years (and some even more severe than Kevin’s), which had been followed by very sincere and satisfactory apologies, which might not have fixed everything, but certainly made things easier for the celebrities involved as they moved on with their careers.
With that in mind, there’s really no excuse for a celebrity to not apologise, unless they’re dead set on being an arsehole. Apologies from celebrities are so rare, that when they are made, they go a long way. How many celebs have you seen praised and patted on the back for making limp apologies?
In Vulture’s roundup of Kevin Hart’s comments about the whole homophobia thing, they went through a series of interviews. The first interview was with Men’s Health in 2013, where Hart said:
Does any of that resemble an apology to you? How about the next interview, from Playboy in 2014?
Oh, so it’s the gay people misconstruing the jokes who are wrong, not Kevin Hart for making the jokes. Okay! That same year, Kevin took part in a Reddit AMA, where he said he changed his mind about gay jokes because “It’s just a sensitive topic and I respect people of all orientations. So, it’s just best left alone.” No apology here, either.
In 2015, he told Rolling Stone that he “wouldn’t tell [the gay-son joke] today”.
Here Kevin is, saying that telling a homophobic joke would be setting himself up for failure, and that’s what he won’t do it – not because he cares about how it would make any LGBTQ person feel. After thoroughly searching the internet for this apology that Kevin Hart said would take as much energy to find as his homophobic tweets, Vulture came up empty-handed. They wrote:
Just as we thought, tbh.
CNN’s Don Lemon responded to the whole saga by saying “Kevin, if anything – this is the time to hear other people out, to understand why they might have been offended. I don’t see any meaningful outreach to the LGBT community. Not that I know of. Maybe you do it privately, and if you do, I congratulate you.” There really is very little evidence out there that Kevin Hart has become a better person from all of this, as he claimed he had on Ellen.
Don Lemon pointed out all of the ways Kevin could use this situation to help others. Opportunities that he is wasting, if he continues to dodge accountability.
Don finished this story by pointing out that 44% of homeless gay youth in America are black, despite the fact that only 12.3% of the American population are black.
Looking at the sheer number of Kevin Hart fans who are blindly scrambling to defend this comedian that they deeply respect, there’s really no denying that Kevin could play a massive role in changing people’s attitudes towards homosexuality in America, but right now, that doesn’t seem to be something he’s interested in doing.
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