Updated Dec. 7

Days after it was announced that Kevin Hart would host the 2019 Academy Awards, backlash over some of his past comments prompted him to respond to his critics on Instagram. Then on Friday, he announced that he was not going to host the event.

Mr. Hart was in trouble because several of his tweets and comments — most of them several years old — used the word “gay” as an insult or were otherwise deemed homophobic.

In his initial response hours before stepping down, Mr. Hart did not apologize. “Guys, I’m almost 40 years old,” he said in a video. “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 the past, then do you. I’m the wrong guy, man. I’m in a great place. A great mature place where all I do is spread positivity.”

Six hours later, he seemed to reconsider that response.

“I have made the choice to step down from hosting this year’s Oscar’s,” he wrote on Twitter. “This is because I do not want to be a distraction on a night that should be celebrated by so many amazing talented artists. I sincerely apologize to the LGBTQ community for my insensitive words from my past.”