The pint-sized dynamo Kevin Hart took the stage to open the 2025 BET Awards, and no celebrity was safe, let’s say that. Kanye West’s lack of impulse control, Diddy’s party-boy persona, and Cardi B’s viral yacht scandal get riffs in the hard-hitting, rib-tickling Hart gives new nettles.
The monologue began by taking a sly knock on, of all people, Mr. West himself. Hart picked up the phone, squinted at the screen, and said, “Oh s###, it’s Kanye. Yep, he says he’s out front, just waiting for someone to let him in.”
Quickly resuming, he cautioned the audience, “Don’t do it. We all saw the movie Sinners, don’t let his ass in here so he can bite somebody so that he can bite Playboi Carti again, okay?”
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It was, of course, a metaphorical bite, but the reference was cutting. Hart was making light of the life-or-death friction between Ye and Playboi Carti, a beef that’s only simmered hotter since last week, when Carti omitted West from his latest project, MUSIC. West clapped back the previous month with a surprise collab with NBA YoungBoy that the cut Carti later claimed he copied from him.
But Kevin wasn’t done. Next up: Diddy. Mogul never passed Hart’s lips, but the message could not have been clearer.
“No after parties tonight. Take your a#### home after this; that’s why I did it on a Monday,” Hart added onstage, leaning into the mic. “People gotta go to work tomorrow … That’s where s### gets slippery at them g###### afterparties. We are learning so much about people, aren’t we?”
That “learning” comment? That fell like a brick through a glass window, winking at the chitter-chatter and headlines about Diddy’s purported off-the-clock pursuits, like that slanging “freak offs.”
But the knockout punch referenced Cardi B and her boyfriend, the N.F.L. player Stefon Diggs. The two were most recently in the news due to a now-infamous yacht video in which Diggs was taped giving away a mystery pink bag. Cue the theories online about “pink cocaine.”
“No yachts, no boats. Cardi B, no pink stuff. What the f### was that?” he said, hands lifted in disbelief. “None of that stuff. It’s about everybody getting hit tonight. We’re live. It’s gonna be a good time.”
If there was still a shred of uncertainty over whether Kevin Hart still possessed the capacity to own a stage completely, it’s been eliminated. His monologue was part savage, part downright hysterical, straddling that dangerous line between risky and ridiculous that only an actual comic can. Kevin Hart didn’t host the BET Awards, but he commandeered them, roasted the guest list, and left no ego unbruised.
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