Kevin Hart is all of us when it comes to digesting Bill Maher’s ill-fated racial joke on live TV. On Saturday night (June 3), the controversial (and very white) comedian let a funny fly about being a “house n***er” and Black Twitter and beyond simply wasn’t having it. Maher has since apologized for his comments, but that won’t stop the conversation from happening on the internets and airwaves.
Kevin Hart was one of those to add poignant bits to the conversation. On a trip to Power 105.1’s The Breakfast Club, Hart let it be known that he doesn’t consider Maher a racist or malicious, but the joke simply was unfunny and inappropriate.
“I’ve seen Bill Maher come to the defense of black people on several occasions, but that’s a bad judgement,” he said. “Granted, I don’t think Bill Maher is a racist but that’s a bad judgement. It’s inappropriate and it’s not right to say that and say it the way you said it as comfortable as you said it in an open forum, you’re wrong. You can issue all the apologies you want, but you know he says it around friends. It’s not something that he’s not going to say anymore. But for you to say it on your platform, that’s tacky.”
He also addressed Kathy Griffin, who’s in a similar boat of scrutiny after her severed Donald Trump head joke.
“I curb myself because it’s a different day and time,” Hart said. “You can play the freedom of speech thing all you want, and we can play the ‘we’re comedians’ thing all you want. Ultimately, we know what we’re saying and you know the backlash that can come from it … In Kathy Griffin’s case, what she’s doing was a bad judgement of a joke. When that comes, you gotta understand social media is a different monster. Before, people could talk about what you did and it would get to you… Now, these things go viral. The backlash is going to be serious backlash.”
Charlamagne also asked if Hart would be supporting Bill Cosby during his trials.
“I don’t think comedians are going to bring to justice whatever it is that he’s looking for,” he said. “Overall just the support in knowing that within a legacy that he’s built is what’s important to him and what should be… As a comedian, I can say that Bill Cosby has done so much for comedy. I can say that what is going on with him now is such a tough thing because it tarnishes the reputation of what America’s favorite dad was. That’s unfortunate.”
Watch the whole interview below.