Kevin Hart Gets Candid On His Complicated Relationship With His Late Father
Kevin Hart announced the death of his father, Henry Witherspoon, in October 2022 with a touching tribute on his Instagram page, "RIP to one of the realest & rawest to ever do it," Hart captioned a photo of himself with his dad. "Love you dad. Gone but never forgotten." Hart's caption added, "Thank you for everything ... I'm a better father because of you." In another IG post, Hart simply wrote, "RIP spoon."
Unfortunately, the comedian and his dad didn't always have a good relationship. There were times, the comedian himself admitted, when they didn't have any contact at all. In an interview on the podcast "On Purpose with Jay Shetty," Hart got candid about his complicated relationship with his late father. "You know, me and my dad, we weren't the closest, but we weren't not close," he said. On Shetty's podcast, Hart explained that, while they ended in a positive place, it took a while for them to get there.
Kevin Hart and his dad focused on moving beyond the past
Describing his relationship with his father, Henry Witherspoon, Kevin Hart told Jay Shetty that his father's life was full of "drastic downs" and "a small amount of ups." That life included drugs, jail time, and periods of Witherspoon being absent from his children's lives. However, "at the end of the day, I'm going to love my dad for simply being my dad," Hart shared. The comedian explained, "I can easily sit here and ridicule or judge my dad for the mistakes he that he made or for his past, but that does nothing."
Rather than trying to change the past, Hart said, he and his dad focused on finding solutions and moving forward. After Weatherspoon made the decision to get clean, Hart acknowledged that his father tried to make amends by being involved with his grandchildren. "My dad's actions in trying his best to be an unbelievable grandfather made our father-son relationship that much better," Hart revealed.
It's not the first time Hart has opened up about his father, who he says was living with serious drug addictions for much of his childhood. In a 2016 interview on "The Howard Stern Show" (via People), Hart said, "heroin, coke, crack, you name it, he did it." But the actor still wouldn't change a thing. "The way I look at it now, I'm such a great father because I don't want to make the mistakes that my dad made," Hart added.