The Academy Awards have chosen to go without a host again. The news comes after last year’s debacle with Kevin Hart, which forced the show to go hostless.
This year’s decision was confirmed Wednesday by ABC Entertainment president Karey Burke, who said a “traditional host” was out of the question, Variety reports. And according to her, the reason was clear.
“We expect that we’re going to have a very commercial set of nominations and a lot of incredible elements have come together that make us think we are going to have a very entertaining show again,” she continued while speaking at the Television Critics Association winter press tour in Los Angeles.
Hart had originally been announced as the host in 2019, but he stepped down just days after the announcement when he refused to apologize over resurfaced homophobic tweets.
The Jumanji star initially tried to dismiss the controversy, but later revealed that he’d stepped down after the Academy called on him to apologize or “we’re going to have to move on and find another host.”
Last month, Hart addressed the controversy in his Netflix docuseries, Kevin Hart: Don’t F―k This Up, calling his handling of the incident “immature.”
“Looking back at it. What I thought it was, it wasn’t. And my approach to dealing with it, because of the assumption that I had, was just wrong,” he says of the controversy in the doc.
“I f-cked up,” he continued. “Instead, I said, ‘I addressed it.’ I said, ‘I apologized.’ I said, ‘I talked about this already.’ I was just immature.”
While Oscars nominations will be announced on Monday, Hollywood’s biggest night will kick off on Sunday, February 9,