Kevin Hart Opens Up About How His Cheating Scandal Impacted His Children On 'Red Table Talk'
Making amends! Kevin Hart opened up about how his cheating scandal affected his children during a Father’s Day special on Red Table Talk.
In 2017, the comedian was forced to publicly apologize to wife Eniko Parrish and his children after he claimed that someone was allegedly trying to blackmail him with a video of him with another woman.
"I stepped in some s**t, yeah," the 41-year-old admitted to host Will Smith, who asked how he addressed the scandal with his kids.
"You’re never prepared for that side of it. Having a little girl in my life, it’s tough," Hart explained. "You don’t realize the impact that your mistakes can truly have. When the kids get involved, it’s a different feeling, it’s a different emotion."
Hart is dad to Heaven, 16, and Hendrix, 13, who he shares with ex-wife Torrei. He and Parrish share Kenzo, 3, and Kaori, 8 months.
"Through my public, uh, debacles … it’s very hard to bother me," Hart said. "But when your child shows disappointment, shows emotion, shows 'I don’t understand why' and you gotta have those conversations, the head drops for the first time."
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"Now you realize there’s a different emotional cord that can be pulled on you that nobody else has the privilege of ever touching. My daughter touched on that cord, man," Hart noted.
"When me and my wife went through what we went through and the whole cheating display, my talk with Heaven, goddamn. That was one like no other. Getting my daughter back, getting my daughter to understand that I’m sorry, that I made a mistake, that was real, the Jumanji star continued. "To understand, I’m still Dad."
"Until this day, my daughter is tough on me," Hart added. "My daughter don't play no games with her father."
In 2018, Hart also stepped down from hosting the Oscars after controversial old tweets resurfaced. "When the whole thing started to happen with the LGBTQ+ community and the misconception of me and what I was and what I feel, my daughter was so upset because she couldn't process how people could think this about her father," he recalled.
The incident made Hart realize that being in the spotlight affects his family, too. "And it was so tough because this was when I started to realize how my fame has an impact on my household," he added. "There is a certain level of obliviousness."
Hart's admission prompted Smith to share his own perspective. "What you don't realize is as the center of the power, you sit in the eye of the storm where it's calm but one step away from you is where the winds are whipping and where people attack and all of the fury from the storm rages," the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air alum, 52, noted. "But because it is calm where we are, we can be totally oblivious to the punishment that gets taken out on the people around us."
