It's been nearly a month since Kevin Hart opted to relinquish his 2019 Academy Awards hosting duties after several homophobic tweets posted between 2009 and 2011 resurfaced. The tweets contained derogatory language referring to the LGBTQ community in addition to comments on sexuality. Now, the actor is opening up about everything that has happened since stepping down from being this year's Oscar's host and its surrounding controversy.

Hart recently appeared on Variety's "Playback with Kris Tapley" podcast and reflected on the last several weeks, his apology, why he really gave up his spot has Oscars host, his current relationship with the Academy, and if the door is still open for Hart to host the annual awards show.

Over the last few weeks, Hart has apologized for his tweets and during the "Playback" podcast and it seems he has taken away an important lesson. He told Tapley, "Not only did I address it, I apologized, and after apologizing I said I understand why people would be upset from these tweets, why people would be hurt, why people would be damaged, and you know what? I get it. So not only am I sorry, I'm going to make it a point to never joke like this again because I understand." He added, "So within a 10-year span of my career you don’t see any blemishes. You don’t see any signs of me going back to that young comedian that I was then that was looking for an ignorant laugh."

As for why he ultimately stepped down as the host of this year's Academy Awards, as he stated in his original apology on social media, that he did not want to be a "distraction" during the show. He explained:

"Me doing the Oscars was to take the tension off of the Oscars. It's been so uptight for the last I don't know how many years. 'Kevin we want you to host because we want you to lighten the mood up and bring you and your essence to this night.' That was immediately taken away, because any promo that I do leading up to it, I'm still talking about past tweets that I've addressed years ago. Me touching the stage at the Oscars, I would then have to address the tweets that I talked about from years ago. It just made me say to myself, 'I'm not going to play the game that society wants people to play right now.' Your past is your past for a reason. When you apologize for something, either your apology is accepted or it’s not. If it is, then we move forward and what you do when you move forward is become better. So when there’s signs of an individual becoming better, when there are signs of an individual doing better, then what else is really needed?"