This week on 60 Minutes, correspondent Anderson Cooper profiled comedian, actor, and entertainment mogul Kevin Hart.
While Cooper was in Los Angeles following Hart throughout his day, he visited the set of an ad campaign for the apparel company Fabletics. Hart was shooting the campaign with his daughter, Heaven Hart.
Heaven told 60 Minutes that she bristles at some of her dad’s embarrassing jokes about her in his stand-up comedy specials. She said there were even some jokes she didn’t know about until the comedy special aired.
“Why is he blowin’ my business out there?” she asked Anderson Cooper. “He’s a sneaky little guy.”
Kevin Hart said that as his daughter grew up, she became more vocal about how she felt when he revealed her private life to audiences onstage. Heaven eventually told him to knock off the jokes completely, and Kevin agreed to leave them out of his routine.
“As your kid grows older…you have to be a little more conscious of what you’re doing based off of what they feel, what they like, and what they don’t,” the elder Hart explained to Cooper.
“So, I haven’t talked about her since ’cause she gave me, like, a hard threat,” he said.
“I did. I threatened him,” Heaven confirmed with a smile.
Cooper also accompanied Hart for an early morning workout with Hart’s personal trainer Ron “Boss” Everline and a few friends. Cooper said the workout was intense, and the thermostat had been turned up, turning the room into a “sweatbox.”
“Kevin Hart famously works out every day at, like, 5 a.m. And I’d heard this. I’d seen it on his Instagram… I’m always skeptical,” Cooper told 60 Minutes Overtime.
“I think Kevin Hart actually does work out every day. He’s in really, really good shape.”
Kevin Hart has enjoyed immense success in the entertainment industry, which shows no present signs of slowing. But he told Cooper that he has faced challenges and hard times throughout his life, especially in his earlier years as he was coming up.
Hart grew up in a rough neighborhood in North Philadelphia with his mom, Nancy Hart, and brother, Robert. His dad, Henry Witherspoon, was in and out of his life and addicted to drugs. It took Hart a while to break into the entertainment business, and he had to rely on financial support from his mother when he was struggling to find his footing as a comedian.
But Hart told Cooper that he appreciates all the hardship he endured because it brought him to where he is today.
“I would not change anything, every piece of good, every piece of bad… you feel like things are supposed to happen and they’re supposed to be perfect. It’s not supposed to be,” he said.
“I truly am appreciative for every stage of it. Like, every single stage.”
The video above was originally published on April 21, 2024 and was produced by Will Croxton. It was edited by Sarah Shafer Prediger.
Footage of Kevin Hart performing in the 1990s courtesy of Shephatiah Harvey.
