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Photo: Paul Morigi/Getty Images
It’s fair to say that Kevin Hart was honored on March 24 with the Mark Twain Prize, an award given annually by the Kennedy Center to a comedian who has had a great and lasting impact on American culture. It’s also correct, maybe even further correct: to say that on Sunday night in Washington, DC, inside the Kennedy Center Concert Hall and in front of more than 2,000 people, Hart had his butt roasted. Repeatedly.
Okay, yeah: His ass was lovingly roasted by other comedians who know him and/or have worked with him, including Jerry Seinfeld, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, Tiffany Haddish and his frequent co-star Regina Hall. All of them were clearly happy to pay homage to a comedian who sells out stadiums and stars in popular movies but somehow has time for an infinite number of side hustles, including, but not limited to, producing television shows, which appear in a seemingly an infinite number of Capital One commercials and the start of a plant-based fast-casual restaurant chain. (It’s true! See?) But his friends and colleagues also seemed very eager to continue fanning the flames of the grill.
They gave Hart shit on several fronts, starting at the beginning with Seinfeld, who invited the audience to question why he bothered showing up in this. “Do you think I’m doing this because I owe Kevin Hart a favor?” asked the man who frequently drove around in cars with comedians, including Hart, while he drank coffee. “Or maybe I like the idea that Kevin Hart owes me a favor? I won’t tell you.” Then he added, “I can’t think of much that Kevin Hart can do for me. Can he? I don’t want to be in jumanji.”
Some took the obvious route by making jokes about Hart’s height. Jimmy Fallon, imitating Johnny Cash, sang an entire song about how short Hart is. “He’s got some talent, he buys his clothes at Build-A-Bear,” Fallon said as he strummed an acoustic guitar and wore a black cowboy hat. “He is very humble and down to earth, but his feet don’t touch the ground in a chair.”
Similarly, JB Smoove recalled meeting Hart when he was a young aspiring comedian hanging out at the Laff House in Philadelphia, Hart’s hometown. “I’d say, ‘Man, if someone doesn’t come here and get their damn son out of this club,’” Smoove recalled. “They serve alcohol here. Who brings a teenager to a fucking comedy club? But he wasn’t a teenager at all. The little boy had some peach fuzz. He Was Kevin!
Smoove, also known as Lion of Curb your enthusiasm, also spent a large portion of his nine-and-a-half-minute comments criticizing Hart for stealing his jokes. “I also remember how, after leaving the club to return to New York City, I couldn’t even make it across the Ben Franklin Bridge before I got a call that made me stop and find a damn pay phone and call my answering service! so the operator can relay the message that Kevin was on stage stealing my shit again! Smoove later added that he could have handled the matter in two ways: Shay Shay Club,” a reference to Katt Williams’ January appearance on Shannon Sharpe’s podcast when she accused Hart of being an industrial plant, or airing her grievances “right here at the Kennedy Center at the Mark Twain Prize. And I’m glad he was here!
The blows kept coming. Hall criticized Hart for his love of cash: “Kevin really cares…about the quality of the check, not the project. Some of that shit is pretty bad, but you know what? “This man makes a lot of money.” Lil Dicky too: “Every year, this guy comes out with like 40 different projects, and at least half of them, you look at it and think: Oh, he must just be doing this for money..” Rock too: “Kevin is a smart businessman. He is the first person to be paid to win the Mark Twain Prize. That’s right, tonight he’s getting $100,000, right, Kev? (A Kennedy Center representative confirmed that this was a joke and that Hart was not paid to be the recipient.)
Hall, Haddish, and Chelsea Handler noted Hart’s habit of making social plans or other commitments and then abandoning them. After explaining how Hart had promised to help her cross the border into Canada during COVID by giving her a job on a movie he was filming, Handler dryly said, “That’s when I learned that if you ask Kevin for a favor, you can always count on him.” ”. upon hearing these three words: I have you. And then you can count on never hearing from him again.”
At this point, you might feel a little bad for Hart. No. He was having the time of his life on Sunday night, sitting in a box with his wife, Eniko Hart, and his four children, and dying of laughter at every hit, including a joke. by Nick Cannon. After the announcer led the crowd to believe that surprise guest Eddie Murphy was about to appear, Cannon, who looked a lot like Axel Foley, took the stage. “Eddie Murphy isn’t coming to see your little ass,” Cannon yelled. “I got you, bitch!”
The language during the Mark Twain Prize ceremony was a little saltier than usual, perhaps in part because Netflix will broadcast it for the first time this year after decades of its broadcast on PBS. By design or accident, the vibe was a little more relaxed and the F-bombs were detonated more frequently by comedians onstage and in montages of Hart’s career highlights. But there were also emotional moments, especially in the speech of Chappelle, who gave the final tribute of the night. “I love you so much,” he told Hart. “And never forget I said it, because we can only talk on podcasts.”
“Chris Rock and I would never play in a stadium before we saw you do it,” he continued. “You made me dream big when you were younger than me. It is humiliating. But he is inspiring, man.”
When Hart finally took the stage to accept his award, he became emotional, particularly when he thanked his children – “There is no life in me without you,” he told them through tears – and all the people who supported him, both throughout his career as and appearing at the Kennedy Center.
“While this award means a lot and I will never take it for granted, it means nothing more than looking over there and saying: Wow, I got Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle to come out.” he said, looking at the box where the three stand-up comedians were sitting side by side like a Mount Rushmore of comedy titans. “There’s nothing that can mean more than that.”
Of course, when Hart didn’t thank Cannon and Smoove by name, they both got up and started yelling at him. He had an immediate response: “Do you think it was an accident? Fuck you, Nick. Well? I really thought Eddie Murphy was here. JB, did you tell everyone I stole my style? Screw you, JB!
If you want to know how many of those Fuck offOnce the final edition of the ceremony has been made, you will be able to watch it on Netflix starting May 11.
