ON THE DEFENCE: Kevin Hart
COMEDIAN KEVIN Hart has again defended a controversial joke where he compared the credit scores of dark-skinned women with lighter skinned women.
Hart, who was labelled "self-hating" after the offensive tweet, was forced to defend the 2010 joke once more after a recent interview with Playboy where he explained why he won’t make jokes about gay people or discuss politics.
In the interview, the diminutive funny man said: "I’m not a political guy. I don’t really deal with Democrats or Republicans. I don’t find that funny. And I don’t talk about the gay community, be it male or female. No thank you! It’s such a sensitive subject. I’ve seen comics get into serious trouble by joking about gay people. It’s too dangerous. Whatever you say, any joke you make about the gay community, it’s going to be misconstrued. It’s not worth it."
The interviewer then brought up the infamous joke where he tweeted: "#handsdown Light-skinned women usually have better credit than a dark-skinned women...Broke ass dark hoes....lol."
Though Hart recognises the joke caused offence, he told Playboy, "it was just me being silly on Twitter."
"Some people were offended by it, but that’s always a risk with comedy. Nobody’s going to find everything funny. I didn’t feel I had to apologize for something that was misconstrued and taken out of context."
But Hart claimed he doesn’t have any problems against women: “I have no ill will toward women, not dark-skinned women, not light-skinned women. I was just being silly. I’m a comedian. Being silly is my job; it’s how I pay my bills.”
His recent comments with the men's magazine stirred up renewed backlash online, with fans hitting out at the comic for damaging the self-esteem of dark-skinned women.
"When Black men like Kevin Hart carve out a special place to destroy dark skin sistas esteem it says a lot about how small he feels inside," wrote @AfroStateOfMind.
@ALLTHINGSMWNY added: "I wonder how @KevinHart4real will explain his dark skin jokes to his daughter! One day she will grow into a dark skin woman."
Not one to hold back, Hart hit back, saying: "Please miss me with the bull**** @nhoward785 ur dumb as rocks for believing that I hate Dark skin woman. It's a tweet from 4yrs ago genius
"Last but not least @nhoward785 my daughter is dark skin & so is my mother & so is my grandmother & so is my Ex wife...u sound stupid".