Daytime talk show host Ellen DeGeneres has asked the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to let comedian Kevin Hart host of the upcoming award show.
DeGeneres said that when she called, they agreed and said they would be “thrilled” to have Hart host the Oscars if he would reverse his decision to step down.
“They were like, ‘Oh my God! We want him to host … whatever we can do, we would be thrilled, and he should host the Oscars,” DeGeneres said during a show set to air Friday. “The Academy is saying, ‘What can we do to make this happen?'”
Hart said he would no longer host the Oscars last month after online “trolls” posted years old tweets that included gay jokes, which many said were “homophobic.”
In one of the tweets from 2009, Hart used the phrase “fat faced fag,” and in another said he would tell his son it was gay to play with a dollhouse and break it over his head if he saw his son playing with it.
“It’s tough for me because it was an attack, a malicious attack on my character, to end me,” Hart told DeGeneres. “Leaving here, I promise you I’m evaluating this conversation. Let me assess, just sit in the space and really think, and you and I will talk before anything else.”
Hart told Degeneres, who has hosted the Oscars in the past, that he doesn’t have a “homophobic bone” in his body.
The talk show host said he shouldn’t let critics get in the way of his dream of hosting the awards.
“They’re gonna win if you don’t host the Oscars,” DeGeneres said, referring to his online critics. “You can’t let them destroy you and they can’t destroy you because you have too much talent. That’s why they [The Academy] haven’t found another host. I think they were secretly hoping that you would come back.”
Hart said in an Instagram post that he was only supposed to stop in to the show to talk about his new movie, but ended up staying for the full hour of the show.
“I stopped by @theellenshow to do some promo for my new movie “The Upside” & ended up staying on for the entire hour,” Hart posted Thursday after the taping of the show. “This was by far the most raw/honest & authentic interview that I have ever done. We talk about the Oscar controversy in depth.”
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