I think it was right
after I hosted the Oscars, we went to dinner. Yes. And we talked about
you hosting the Oscars. Mm-hmm. That it was a dream of
yours, you've always wanted to host the Oscars. I said you should host the
Oscars, then you get asked to-- I mean, it must
have been amazing when they asked you
to host this year. Unreal. You know, there's a lot of
goals that I have on my board. I've got a vision board. And on a vision board
is so many things that I want to do that I
check off as they get done. And Oscars was up there. Oscars was one of
the highest of highs, simply because there
hasn't been a lot of African-American comedians
that have been able to do it. I would have been the fourth. So to get the moment, celebrate
the moment, oh my God, I can't believe it's
happening, and then the next morning after a
day full of congratulations and celebrations I'm
hit with an onslaught on social media of my
past coming back up again. Literally, the next morning. Mm-hmm. Not even a full 24 hours
to glow in the glory of, Kevin Hart is hosting
this year's Oscars. And when it happened,
my first thought is, I'm going to ignore it. I'm going to ignore
because it's 10 years old. This is stuff I've addressed. I've talked about this. This isn't new,
I've addressed it. I've apologized for it, I'm
not going to pay it any mind. Because when you
feed into that stuff, you only add more
fuel to the fire. Right. I'm not going to do-- I'm going to leave it alone. Another day goes by,
the fuel is now-- it's growing, this
fire is angry. It's all over the place. Now the headlines are
starting to change. The headlines are,
Kevin Hart refuses to apologize for homophobic
tweets from the past. The word "again" was left out. Everybody took those headlines
and started to run with it. So now the slander on my
name is all homophobia. Now I'm a little upset. I'm a little upset
because I know who I am. I know I don't have a
homophobic bone in my body. I know that I've addressed it,
I know that I've apologized. I know that within
my apologies I've taken 10 years to put
my apology to work. I've yet to go back
to that version of the immature
comedian that once was. I've moved on. I'm a grown man, I'm
cultured, I'm manufactured, I'm a guy that understands now. I look at life through
a different lens. And because of that, I
live it a different way. So now I'm kind of upset
because these 10 years are just being ignored, they're
being brushed past. Nobody is saying,
guys, this is 10 years. No headlines are saying,
10 years ago he apologized. Nobody is finding the apologies,
nobody is finding the footage from where I had to address it. I had to address
it when I did Get Hard promo with Will
Ferrell, because of my joke that I had about my son. I had to address
those tweets in 2012 in a very, very heavy junket
where I was asked questions, and asked questions
about homophobia based on those tweets. And I had to address
it and apologize, and say I understand what those
words do and how they hurt. I understand why
people would be upset, which is why I made the choice
to not use them anymore. I don't joke like that anymore,
because that was wrong. That was a guy that was
just looking for laughs and that was stupid. I don't do that anymore. So to be put in a position
where I was given an ultimatum, I was given an ultimatum,
Kevin apologize or we're going to have to find another host. I mean, I was
given an ultimatum, this is now becoming
like a cloud. What was once the brightest
star and brightest light ever just got real dark. The Oscars is no
longer about Kevin Hart stepping on his stage and
taking a intense night where people are so uptight
and making it loose and fun. That's my reason
for doing it, I'm going to bring
fun to the Oscars. I'm going to make
the Oscars fun. Now all of a sudden
it's a little darker, because the conversation isn't
about me hosting the Oscars, conversation is about Kevin
Hart's tweets from 10 years ago and homophobia. I don't want to step on a stage
and make that night about me and my past when you got
people that have worked hard to step on a stage for the
first time and receive an award. I'm now taking away
from all those moments because the night is it's
focused on something else now. That's how I see it. Because I saw it
like that, I said I would much rather step
down and apologize again while stepping down. Once again, I'm sorry
if these words hurt. I'm sorry. But either my apology
is accepted or it isn't. Either I can move
forward or I can't. But you can't grow as a
person without mistakes. You don't know what
perfection is unless you've experienced imperfection. So I don't know the
perfect individual that society is now looking for. It's not me. I'll be the first to say
it, I'm an open book. There is no perfect
bone in my body. I have made several mistakes
and I embrace them all because I'm a better man
today because of them. In this case, I just said
I'm going to walk away, because I felt like it was
a conversation that was just going to continue, and
continue, and continue. I would much rather
say I'm sorry again and walk away, because I want to
be done with the conversation. I don't want to have to have
this conversation anymore, because I know who I am. I'm not that guy. I know you're not that
guy, because I know you. Mm-hmm. So I'm going to take a break,
because I have thoughts. But I want that to
stay exactly as it is. So I'll take a break and then
I'll give you my thoughts. OK. Because I think that the
night will be about you, and it should be about you,
and you should host the Oscars and I'm going to talk
you into it after this. We'll be back. [MUSIC PLAYING] Hi, I'm Andy. Ellen asked me to remind you
to subscribe to her channel so you can see more
awesome videos, like videos of me getting scared or
saying embarrassing things, like ball-peen hammer. And also some videos of
Ellen and other celebrities, if you're into
that sort of thing. [SCREAMING] [BLEEP] God [BLEEP].
He speaks very eloquently on how the social media outrage affected him.