On BET’s Real Husbands of Hollywood, Kevin plays a caricatured, somewhat less successful, version of himself. The real Kevin Hart aka Chocolate Drop aka HartFelt is doing it big. However, for his SNL promos, they've had Hart standing on apple boxes to amplify his height.
Although his height may have prematurely stagnated, his celebrity is on the rise. Not only is Hart, a titan of the comedy circuit, he has his own series and is making inroads into film. He even won his second-consecutive Celebrity All-Star Game MVP award last month.
Hosting SNL is rarified air for black comedians in the mainstream. Only Jamie Foxx, Bernie Mac,Tracy Morgan and Maya Rudolph have hosted the show in the past 10 years. Morgan and Rudolph hosted the show as SNL alumni while Jamie Foxx’s biggest claim to fame hasn't been his stand-up or comedy for years.
Short jokes aside, black comedians have had up and down moments on SNL. In 1975, Richard Pryor became the first black SNL host and participated in a memorable back-and-forth, racial word association skit with Chevy Chase. Things didn't go as well in 1995 when Martin Lawrence was banned from the show for his racy opening monologue.
Unlike Pryor and Lawrence, Hart is a veteran at hosting, however, the 32-year-old comic is more excited for SNL than he has been for the BET Awards or MTV VMA stages.
“For a standup comedian, this is what we live for. This is what we want,” he explains to Entertainment Weekly. “So [the] VMAs was amazing, but this definitely surpasses that.”
