In an exclusive interview, Kevin Hart, the star of hit comedies including The Wedding Ringer, Get Hard, Central Intelligence and Ride Along, gives Parade magazine a preview of his new memoir, I Can’t Make This Up: Life Lessons (written with Neil Strauss), available June 6.
His latest movie, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, in which he provides the voice of the character George, is in theaters now.
Here’s some:
He surprisingly credits his father, Henry, now clean but who struggled with drug addiction most of Hart’s childhood, with a “big positive.” “I am who I am,” says Hart, “because of the mistakes he made.”
He says his mother, Nancy, kept him on the straight and narrow—preventing him from, among other things, buying drugs. “I didn’t know how. I didn’t know where to go. My mother kept me away from all that.”
As a stand-up comedian, Hart says he knows there are lines, and he’s learned about crossing them. “I had one gay joke in my career, and it was about my son at a birthday party, and it was before things got as P.C. as they are now. I get it. [Obviously] there’s nothing wrong with being gay.”
One of the newest projects on his plate is his own multimedia company, HartBeat Productions, which last year launched a 24-hour comedy network streaming service called Laugh Out Loud. “No black comedy, no white comedy—a multicultural hub for comedy where people can come and laugh, that’s what Kevin Hart represents.”
Offstage and out of the spotlight, he’s loving life with his wife, aspiring model Eniko Parrish, and his two children, son Hendrix, 9, and daughter Heaven, 12, from his previous marriage. “Family time, nothing better—kids, kids, kids.”