The Search for a New 2019 Oscars Host

With the New Year beginning, the 91st Annual Oscars are just around the corner. Celebrities and non-celebrities are eager to see who will take home an Academy Award. At the beginning of December, Kevin Hart was named to be the host of this year’s Oscars, but all that changed when some of his past tweets resurfaced that were considered homophobic and anti-gay.

One of the tweets  stated, “Yo if my son comes home & tries 2 play with my daughters doll house I’m going 2 break it over his head & say n my voice ‘stop that’s gay.” The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences told Kevin Hart that he either needed to apologize for these past tweets or the Academy would search for another host. Kevin Hart soon withdrew from being the host of the 91st Oscars on December 6. Hart apologized to the LGBTQ community for what he stated in the past tweets on Friday, December 7, but the Academy is still in search of a new host.

Currently, the Oscars do not have a host and are in a desperate need of one. The current top choices for a new host seem to be late night hosts, such as Jimmy Kimmel and David Letterman. However, the Academy is concerned about finding a host who will not cause any issues that may offend anyone the way Kevin Hart offend the LGBTQ community. Some alternatives to the issue have been suggested such as having several big celebrities act as co-hosts, rather than a single host.

The Oscars is a historically famous awards ceremony, but the job of hosting the awards is not very appealing. Jimmy Kimmel stated that he was paid $15,000 to host the 89th Annual Oscars in 2017 and that compared to what he usually makes as a late-night host, he was being paid almost nothing. Kimmel also stated that before he accepted the job as host, the Academy had asked 14 other people to host and they all declined the offer. With the overall task as host of the Oscars not being very enticing, this leaves the Academy a much more difficult job of finding a new host.

 

Sources:

https://variety.com/2016/tv/news/jimmy-kimmel-leaks-oscar-hosting-pay-1201942496/

https://variety.com/2018/film/news/oscars-academy-kevin-hart-replacement-1203084598/

http://time.com/5473564/kevin-hart-oscars-homophobic-tweets/