Kevin Hart refuses to host an award show again: 'Those days are done'
Kevin Hart insists he will not host an award show ever again.
"Whatever little hope you had, I want to destroy it right now," Kevin told Sky News. "Those gigs aren’t good gigs for comics. It’s no shot to the Oscars, no shot to the Globes or anything else. Those just aren’t comedy-friendly environments anymore.
"I think they got it right one year where it was like just a bunch of personalities acting as the hosts, and that’s a nice thing. It’s a collaborative thing. Different people get to be responsible for act one, act two, act three. But, you know, the days of it being a room for a comic, those days are done."
Hart's comments come after comedian Jo Koy received backlash for his jokes at the 2024 Golden Globes. Among some of Koy’s alleged misses was a joke targeting musician Taylor Swift and multiple digs at the 2023 blockbuster "Barbie."
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In a now viral moment from the show, Koy joked, "The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL? At the Golden Globes, we have fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift. I swear."
As soon as he made the joke, the camera panned to Swift, who seemed unamused.
Koy acknowledged the chilly reception he had gotten mid-performance, admitting during his monologue that some of the lines weren’t landing.
"I got the gig 10 days ago," he told the crowd. "You want a perfect monologue? Yo, shut up … I wrote some of these, and they’re the ones you’re laughing at."
The host told ABC’s "Good Morning America" Monday that his reception at the awards "hurt."
"I had fun," he said. "You know, it was a moment that I’ll always remember. It’s a tough room. It was a hard job, I’m not going to lie.
"I’d be lying if [I said] it doesn’t hurt."
In the Sky News interview, Hart praised his colleagues who have successfully hosted an award show.
"Shout out to those that have cracked the code and done it right early on. You know, the Chris Rocks of the world, the Billy Crystals of the world, the girls we’ve had like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler. Ricky Gervais," Hart said.
"There’s a lot of people that understand that if you’re not an industry comic, meaning a comic that has the relationships of all, then those rooms are very cold. So, me doing it is, of course, at an advantage, because I know the room. … But, for others, it’s not the same.
"It’s not the gig that it was of old. It’s too much pressure on the idea of a comic and what’s jokes and not jokes. So, it’s tough."
In 2019, the comedian was slated to host the Oscars. Prior to the award show, tweets by Hart resurfaced from over a decade before. Included were anti-gay comments and clips from his previous stand-up shows that were deemed offensive.
That same year, Hart told Variety he would not host an award show. Hart has previously hosted the BET Awards, the MTV Movie Awards and the MTV Video Music Awards.
SNL star Michael Che recently weighed in on the conversation.
Che, who hosts the NBC sketch series’ "Weekend Update," argued comedians "should boycott" award shows because of the harsh treatment they receive for making jokes.
He made the comments in multiple now-deleted Instagram posts this week after the reception Koy received for some of the jokes he made hosting the event Sunday.
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In his first post, Che said, "Comedians should boycott hosting award shows. For one, it’s very difficult to make movie stars laugh. They’re way too self-conscious to have a good time.
"Two, they don’t even want to laugh. They’re too busy thinking about their careers and their speeches and their ’cause’. … They think they wanna be made fun of, but they actually don’t. They actually just want their trophy. And a nice photo."
In another post he deleted, Che defended Koy’s "Barbie" joke when he said "’Oppenheimer’ is based on a 721-page Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Manhattan Project, and ‘Barbie’ is on a plastic doll with big boobies."
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Che wrote, "You know what really bugs me at award shows? Whenever a standup host is struggling, they always cut to some actor making this face [eye roll emoji].
"Like really dude..? You can’t just ‘act’ like the s--- was funny..?"
Pointing out the hypocrisy, he added that when those actors lose their category, "the camera cuts to them and they’re smiling and clapping! ohhhhh, so you caaaaaan fake happiness nowwwwwww…"
The comedian wasn’t finished, proclaiming "Hollywood doesn’t respect comedians," adding that if it did, "Eddie Murphy and Jim Carrey would have about 3 Oscars each.. and for their comedy movies! Not the dramas they had to do [so] they could be taken seriously."
Fox News Digital's Gabriel Hays contributed to this report.