Kevin Hart will always support his friends. The actor got candid about why he defended Ellen DeGeneres amid her workplace investigation, as well as Nick Cannon after his recent controversial comments.
“I don’t lose sight of the definition of friendship, and in our business, it’s one thing that people don’t really hold on to. There’s a lot of relationships that are fake, and there’s some that are real,” Hart told Deadline in an interview published Tuesday. “In my case, the ones that are real are the ones that I’m always going to be adamant about speaking on behalf of. I know the people that both of them are, and knowing the people, all I can say is my experiences with those people.”
Hart added that it’s “not to take away from what other people are saying that they have had, and that they have done. It’s just to highlight what I’m saying I know, and what I can speak on behalf of.”
“In times like this, I know also how dark it gets. I know how lonely it gets, because I know that these are times when people just turn their back on you,” he continued. “So for the ones that you love, that are close to your heart, you just want them to have some support, when it seems that there is none out there, and that’s just who I am as a person.”
“That goes for anybody, across the board, that I consider a friend, and that’s not a big group of people. Everybody doesn’t get that conversation and that feeling from me, but the ones that do, I’m serious about it,” Hart expressed. “I’m true to it, and it doesn’t mean that you have to speak on behalf of the problem. It doesn’t mean that you have to disregard the things that others are saying. It means that I can just speak on my relationship with my friends.”
He concluded by stating, “When it comes to Nick, and it comes Ellen, I know who they are, and I know who they’ve been for the years that I’ve been around them, and I can only speak to that. Those are two of the most amazing people that I know.”
Over the weekend, Hart and DeGeneres were photographed enjoying lunch together in Montecito, California. Hart expressed support for DeGeneres in a heartfelt post on Instagram on Aug. 4. “It’s crazy to see my friend go thru what she’s going thru publicly,” he said. “I have known Ellen for years and I can honestly say that she’s one of the dopest people on the f**king planet. She has treated my family and my team with love and respect from day 1.”
Cannon received backlash from anti-Semitic comments he made during an episode of his Cannon’s Class podcast last month. The actor went on to apologize to the Jewish community and those whom he offended with his comments. However, in the fallout, his talk show was put on hold; he’s taking some time away from his Los Angeles–based radio show, Nick Cannon Mornings, on Meruelo Media’s KPWR-FM Power 106; and ViacomCBS, Nickelodeon’s parent company, cut ties with him after he had recently been named chairman of TeenNick.
As for the Ellen show workplace investigation, a spokesperson for Warner Bros. confirmed to 360aproko on Monday that executive producers Ed Glavin and Kevin Leman and co-executive producer Jonathan Norman have left the show, while the program’s resident DJ, Stephen “tWitch” Boss, has been promoted to co-executive producer after six years on Ellen.
On day one of DeGeneres and the staff returning to work, the host once again apologized and poured her heart out to about 200 of the show’s employees in a video chat.
