Member-only story
It’s Time for Kevin Hart to Decide What He Wants His Legacy to Be
A barrage of avoidable bad decisions has turned the comic from a legend to a laughingstock
Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.
A few days after Kevin Hart released his latest Netflix special, Zero F**ks Given, he was back in front of the camera, this time with an Instagram video reminding the world exactly how many fucks he gave. Twenty-three times he reminded us — 23 times in 88 seconds, every one of them claiming not to care that his disjointed, bland, hour-long attempt at comedy had gotten a lukewarm response.
That wasn’t the end of the Kevin Hart Self-Defense Tour: Days later, he hopped on the social media app Clubhouse to debate fans who were discussing Hart’s comedic merits in a room called “Is Kevin Hart Funny?” What could have been a moment of game-changing celebrity-fan engagement turned into yet another example of Hart’s inability to reckon with himself and insistence on addressing criticism in the worst ways possible. The room turned toxic; Black women were silenced.
Hart wasn’t just genuinely charismatic, with a magnetic smile and an infectious laugh; he was a…
