The Oscars will not have an official emcee this year. The announcement comes after Kevin Hart, who was scheduled to host the show, quit over previous homophobic comments. Although there were a number of big names that were offered to take Hart’s place such as Eddie Murphy and Ellen DeGeneres, it seems the organizers of the event have chosen to proceed without any official host. The decision was made public by ABC’s Entertainment president Karey Burke. The announcement also revealed that normal presenters will take the stage instead.
Some reports have indicated that the idea of a host-less show was quite uncomfortable for ABC at first. However, the network felt that this was actually the right step. The mystery that surrounded the picking of a new host was also good for popularizing the event. The last time the Oscars aired without a traditional host was in 1989. There was an embarrassing opening number during the event that featured Rob Lowe with upcoming actress Eileen Bowman dressed as Snow White. The skit was 15 minutes long and it was awkward, to say the least.
Kevin Hart was scheduled to host this year’s event but a few tweets from his past caught up with him. In fact, the stand-up comedian deleted the homophobic tweets as soon as he was chosen to host the 2019 Oscars but it was too late by then. Media houses and other social media personalities started posting screenshots of these tweets. The controversy brewed on until Hart decided to withdraw as the host. He said that he didn’t want the controversial tweets to be the center of attention during the event. The comedian had described the opportunity to host the Oscars as a dream come true and had previously refused to apologize for the homophobic tweets arguing that he never meant to offend anyone.
Hart did, however, apologize but this happened after he quit the role. There was also a lot of support on social media calling on Hart to jump right back in. People said that he had already apologized for the tweets and there was no need to drag the issue further. But it later emerged that the Academy had in fact reached out to him and requested that he apologizes. Hart said during an appearance in the Ellen show that his tweets came from a place of ignorance adding that he had evolved significantly ever since to become more tolerant towards the LGBTQ community.
Despite this, it was very unlikely that he was going to host the event. A host-less event is definitely a new twist. Since it’s been such a long time since this first happened, many people out there are looking forward to this. The 2019 awards show is planned to take place on February 24th in the city of Los Angeles. The show will feature a number of notable nominations too and it has been described so far as one of the closest Oscars in recent history. It will definitely be very hard to predict the winners.
