Comedian Kevin Hart slammed cancel culture as going too far in a new interview.
“If somebody has done something truly damaging, then, absolutely, a consequence should be attached,” Hart said. “But when you just talk about … nonsense? When you’re talking, ‘Someone said! They need to be taken [down]!’ Shut the f*** up! What are you talking about?”
In a new interview with the Sunday Times, the actor and comedian admitted the movement has some merit but claimed it has begun to spiral out of control and impede comedy.
Hart, who previously surpassed Jerry Seinfeld as the highest-grossing comedian of all time, faced “cancel culture” head-on when some of his old jokes surfaced ahead of his hosting of the 2019 Oscars.
At the time, he said he was given an ultimatum: Apologize or leave.
“[They] basically said, ‘Kevin, apologize for your tweets of old, or we’re going to have to move on to find another host,'” Hart told his supporters in an Instagram video. “I chose to pass, I passed on the apology. The reason why I’ve passed is that I’ve addressed it several times.”
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The Academy Awards aired that year without a host, the first time doing so since 1989.
Hart said during the recent interview that he’s been canceled “three of four times.”
He was “never bothered” by it, though. “If you allow it to have an effect on you, it will.”
“Personally? That’s not how I operate. I understand people are human,” he said.
“Everyone can change,” Hart continued. “It’s like jail. People get locked up so they can be taught a lesson.”
“When did we get to a point where life was supposed to be perfect?” he asked. “Where people were supposed to operate perfectly all the time? I don’t understand.”
“I don’t expect perfection from my kids. I don’t expect it from my wife, friends, employees. Because, last I checked, the only way you grow up is from f***ing up. I don’t know a kid who hasn’t f***ed up or done some dumb s***.”
Hart said he, like many other comedians, has been forced to change the way he does comedy.
“You’re thinking that things you say will come back and bite you on the ass,” he said. “I can’t be the comic today that I was when I got into this.”
The comedian, who was on a media tour to promote his new Netflix film Fatherhood and his cinematic adaptation of the video game series Borderlands, said comedians “are going for the laugh.”
“You’re not saying something to make people angry,” he added during the interview. “That’s not why I’m onstage. I’m trying to make you laugh, and if I did not make you laugh, I failed. That’s my consequence.”
Hart also said he does not care if cancel culture continues to come after him and even encouraged people to “go ahead” and pull some of his old material.
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“There is nothing I can do. You’re looking at a younger version of myself,” he concluded. “A comedian trying to be funny and, at that attempt, failing. Apologies were made. I understand now how it comes off. I look back and cringe. So it’s growth. It’s about growth.”
