The Untold Truth Of Kevin Hart

It was a long, hard road for Kevin Hart, but a combination of natural talent and pure determination finally got this Philadelphia native to his dream destination: Hollywood. Hart's stock has risen so much in recent years that he's now able to command as much as $10 million a movie, and looking at his box office returns, it isn't hard to see why. The critics don't always enjoy his brash brand of humor, but paying moviegoers always seem to turn out in large numbers for him.

2017's Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle pulled in almost a billion dollars worldwide, a figure that would have seemed completely alien to Hart when he was growing up. "We come from a f*****-up situation," Kevin's older brother, Robert Hart, told Variety, explaining that he and his famous sibling were brought up in some of "the worst living conditions" you could possibly imagine. 

Kevin also opened up about his difficult childhood in his candid memoir, I Can't Make This Up: Life Lessons, which did aim to make the reader laugh, but also had some "serious components" to it. "People get to see the comedic persona, but there's more to me," Kevin said, and he wasn't kidding. From the most shocking reveals in his book to the real story behind his explosive cheating scandal, this is the untold truth of Kevin Hart.

While Kevin Hart's mother, Nancy, was by all accounts an upstanding member of society (she worked as a computer analyst at the University of Pennsylvania), the same cannot be said of Hart's dad, Henry. The comedian has discussed his father's questionable behavior during his live shows, mining some of his more painful childhood experiences for the purposes of comedy. Apparently, Hart's old man routinely showed up to parent-teacher meetings and school events under the influence of drugs, and he even allegedly stole a dog from the neighbors after he and his brother asked for one.

"He didn't escape any of it — jail, drugs, addictions, ruining your family to a point where my mom didn't want me and my brother to be around him," the Hollywood big-hitter told People. "Seeing the stuff firsthand — seeing the reality behind drugs and addiction, and what it can really do to a person — that's why I don't do drugs. I learned what I shouldn't be doing from what my dad did." 

Hart's brother became a father figure to him, and together, the brothers helped their dad get clean. "As a team we said, look we can get dad straight," Hart told Howard Stern (via People). "He met an amazing woman who turned his life around and helped him stay clean and right now he's all about clean living ... My dad's fine now. I never lost touch. That's my dad, I don't give a s**t about his mistakes."

His name is well-known across the country and the wider movie-going world, but Kevin Hart didn't even use his surname when he first started doing stand-up shows. Under the stage name Lil' Kev the Bastard, he began working the comedy circuit in his home city of Philadelphia as well as the surrounding areas. He put on shows in New York City and traveled to Los Angeles to try to make a name for himself, but the reaction he got wasn't the one he hoped for. According to The New York Times, Lil' Kev the Bastard "did not warrant much support or enthusiasm" from critics.

"I was trying to be everybody," Hart explained. "I was so confused I didn't know what to do." At the time, Chris Tucker had just become a global star thanks to his memorable performance alongside Jackie Chan in buddy-cop action comedy Rush Hour, and Tucker was reportedly one of a handful of comedians that Hart shamelessly ripped off in those early days. The diminutive funnyman also appreciated the work of future Curb Your Enthusiasm actor J. B. Smoove, though he eventually realized that mashing different styles together just wasn't going to pay off. "It takes a while to tap into that," Hart said. "You don't just wake up and go, 'Oh, I'm going to be good and do this and talk about anything.' I didn't know how to make that funny."

Kevin Hart claims that seeing his dad suffer stopped him from using drugs and drinking to excess, but he has admitted to doing both on occasion. In his memoir, I Can't Make This Up, the actor said he smoked so much weed with Snoop Dogg and Method Man one time that he couldn't see the rappers through the haze. "All I remember is that Snoop kept smoking and passing me the blunt, smoking and passing, smoking and passing, until I could only see smoke and couldn't see the pass," he said.

This information might have come as a shock to certain sections of his audience, but it was Hart's account of his drinking that really stuck out. In a chapter titled "Alcohol," Hart revealed that he tends to urinate everywhere after he's had too much to drink. "When I'm drunk, I think everything is a toilet," he said (via E! News). "When I'm wasted, anything with a door looks like a bathroom to me. And anything with a lid or an opening looks like a toilet. So I'll p*** wherever I think a bathroom should be." He even admitted to using his wife's purse as a toilet at one point. 

Hart squatting over a designer purse in the dead of night might be a funny visual for one of his movies, but it stops being funny when a person this drunk gets behind the wheel of a vehicle...

Kevin Hart is no stranger to baby mama drama. In 2017, his ex-wife, Torrei Hart (mother to his first-born son, Hendrix, and his daughter, Heaven), got into a public spat with his current wife, Eniko Parrish (mother to Hart's second son, Kenzo Kash), over the timeline of their relationship. In an Instagram post, Eniko stated that she and Kevin had been together for eight years — the trouble was, the actor had only been divorced from Torrei for six years. Yikes! 

Drama ensued, but in a since-deleted comment, Eniko said Hart's marriage to Torrei was "broken" by the time she arrived on the scene. "They were separated, living in separate homes," the model claimed (via People). "I was never a secret ... She wanted to play the victim and not own up to her wrong doing as well." Torrei didn't agree with that version of events. "Eniko, sweetheart, normally I don't feed in to this, but when you addressed me directly, you forced my hand to respond," she said. "You, Kevin, and I know the truth."

A few months later, pregnant Eniko got a taste of her own (alleged) medicine when Kevin admitted that he had cheated on her just a few months before she was due to give birth. "I made a bad error in judgment and I put myself in a bad environment where only bad things can happen, and they did," he said (via Newsweek).

He might be short in stature, but Kevin Hart casts a big shadow in Hollywood. "I raised my game a couple of notches out of the intimidation factor," his Jumanji co-star Jack Black told Variety. "He's a king of the industry. I've done a lot of movies, but when someone is on fire, at the peak of their powers, you feel like you have to earn your spot." 

But how long can Hart's winning streak actually last? Some argue that he plays the same character in every movie he appears in, though there's no denying it's a funny character. His appeal has been universal, and that's very much by design. For example, Hart reportedly made a point of not discussing Donald Trump in his shows. "Going after people isn't Kevin's style, and he isn't into telling people what they should or shouldn't think about the president," and insider told Fox News. "Kevin would much rather stick to what he already does well, and that's telling jokes that resonate with people on a personal level." 

Hart was criticized by fellow comic Kathy Griffin for not using his platform to push for political change, and it appears the pressure has finally gotten to him. Trump supporters have threatened to boycott Hart after he insulted POTUS at the 2018 VMAs by comparing the notoriously rowdy awards show to "a typical day at the White House." He also told Trump to "suck it."