Kevin Hart Tells Andy Cohen “The Dope Thing About Me Is There’s 10 Years Of Change”; Don Lemon Should “Meet Me Halfway”

As his Upside promo tour continues, Kevin Hart briefly waded back into the Oscar hosting waters in an interview after his prickly sit-down earlier today on Good Morning America, when he declared “I’m over it.”

One reason he was induced to resume talking about the topic that has raged for days since Deadline first broke the news of Hart exiting the host slot is that he was appearing on Andy Cohen’s SiriusXM radio channel, Radio Andy. (Click above or below to watch video of the exchange.)

Cohen recalled growing up an avid fan of comedian Eddie Murphy and going to see him in concert in 1985. “I was a kid and I was in the closet, and every other word out of his mouth was ‘faggot’ and everyone was laughing. And I literally went in the bathroom and started crying,” Cohen said. “So on behalf of anyone who was ever in your crowd all those years ago and felt the way I did, I’m so happy that you moved on from that.”

Hart acknowledged his vow to GMA host Michael Strahan that he was “over the moment” and would no longer address the sequence of events involving old homophobic tweets and his subsequent treatment of their revelation. “I’m not gonna do it!” he said, refusing to offer any more apologies. Even so, “because it’s you,” he told Cohen, “I will give you one thing.”

Hart then proceeded to describe his evolution over recent years. “The fight is about equality, in my understanding,” he said. “And if that’s the fight — equal treatment — that means the only way to get there is to understand and accept the change that people have to make to get there. So if you’re not aware of the things that you doing and saying, and you’re not aware of the damage, when you are aware, it’s your job to change and make sure you don’t do those things again, which is basically how you get to equality.”

He went on, “The dope thing about me is that there’s 10 years of change. Somehow, that was overlooked.”

Cohen responded, “You’re saying this [homophobic humor] has not been a part of your act for a long time.” Hart affirmed that it wasn’t. “In 2012, I had to address the  tweets,” he explained. “Even reading them, I thought, ‘Oh s–t, yeah, they’ve got a point. They’ve got a strong point.’ So then there’s change.”

Cohen asked Hart about the outcome of his discussions with CNN host Don Lemon last weekend. Lemon delivered on-air monologues last Friday and Monday criticizing Hart, though the tone moderated from Part 1 to Part 2.

“We both made valid points,” Hart said. “He made one strong point. When he made that point, I said, ‘I get it.’ And then I rebuttled [sic] with an amazing point. And when I gave my rebuttal, he said, ‘F–k. I get it.’ I said, ‘That means you got to meet me halfway.’”

Before the interview segued to R. Kelly and The Upside, Hart mused about his situation, “You can’t fake being a good person. People don’t understand that.”

Click below and above for the Oscar hosting portion of the interview:

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