Kevin Hart Drops Oscars Gig Over Past Homophobic Tweets.
CABRERA: The Oscars needs a host because Kevin Hart is out. Just two days after the big announcement naming the comedian as host of next year's ceremony, Kevin Hart has had a change of heart following major backlash. It's really about this. Tweets written by Kevin Hart at certain points of his career, homophobic and anti-gay words and slurs he chose to use when he says he was younger and a different person. Brian Stelter is here with me now. He is our chief media correspondent and host of "RELIABLE SOURCES." Brian, the Motion Picture Academy wanted to hear an apology from Hart. He hesitated. He eventually gave one, but now it's too late.</s>BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Right. By the time he apologized, he also said he was quitting the Oscars, and we don't really know if he was jumping or if he was pushed. You know, this might have been one of those cases where the Academy was pressuring him to quit or maybe he did it all on his own. But either way, now he is out of the Oscars. Here's how it went down. As you mentioned, these old tweets, comments from past stand-up routines were really offensive, clearly homophobic. Some of them were from 2009, 2010, 2011, and Hart kind of sort of addressed it in the past but obviously he had not addressed it strongly enough. So when he was hired as the host of the Oscars on Tuesday people started to point these old tweets and by Thursday morning it was becoming a growing controversy on Twitter and Facebook. Here's how he initially responded in the first of two Instagram videos.</s>KEVIN HART, COMEDIAN: So I just got a call from the Academy, and that call basically said, Kevin, apologize for your tweets of old or we're going to have to move on and find another host. I said who I am now versus who I was then. I've done it. I've done it. I'm not going to continue to go back and tap into the days of old when I moved on.</s>STELTER: So you can see there he was, you know, kind of I don't want to say dismissing the issue entirely, but defending himself and resisting calls for an apology. Then he posted a second video. Here it is.</s>HART: I'm almost 40 years old. If you don't believe that people change, grow, evolve as they get older, I don't know what to tell you. If you want to hold people in a position where they always have to justify or explain their pasts it, then do you.</s>STELTER: So that was his point of view. He was saying he didn't want the Internet trolls to win. He called the trolls people who were commenting on those old tweets, but it wasn't trolls --</s>CABRERA: Then why did he eventually apologize?</s>STELTER: Right. These were advocacy groups, gay rights groups, Hollywood leaders speaking out criticizing him. So by the end of the day, he backed down. He quit the Oscars and he did apologize. Here's his tweet where he came out, he said he is sorry for his past remarks. He is sorry he hurt people in the past. So he came out and issued a forthright apology after saying he didn't want to do that. Point is here, Hart says he doesn't want to be a distraction, but I'm wondering whether the Academy is going to do. The Academy and ABC have a big decision here about who should host the Oscars. It's the biggest non-sports night of the year on TV. A big even, a big opportunity for a host. You know what's curious, Ana, the Academy hasn't commented. They haven't even deleted their announcement about Hart being the host. So I wonder, are they going to try to salvage this somehow? Are they going to try to keep him on as the host? We don't know. All we know is that he says he is not going to host.</s>CABRERA: Let me just -- let me just really quick ask you about Les Moonves. He was fired in September after sexual harassment allegations. You have one of his accusers on your show tomorrow. We're learning more about he allegedly tried to cover things up.</s>STELTER: Yes. This has been the week's other huge story in Hollywood, and a really sickening story. The "New York Times" obtained a draft report by lawyers who were hired to investigate what the heck went wrong inside CBS. They found, frankly, a ton of misconduct. They found evidence that Moonves tried to cover up the alleged abuses and in one case a woman who says she had been victimized by Moonves 20 years ago was -- Moonves was trying to keep her quiet by offering her jobs. Moonves allegedly destroyed evidence, text messages that were incriminating. So this law firm has been writing a report, they're delivering a report to the CBS board, and then the board has a $120 million decision to make. That's how much Moonves was owed according to his contract. But if the board decides they can fire him because of all this alleged misconduct, they wouldn't have to pay him $120 million. So you have this intersection of money and power here. It's very ugly, and it goes to show these big companies, not just CBS, but other big companies have been racked by misconduct scandals. They've got a lot of house cleanings still to do.