Joe Budden Speaks Out After Getting Backlash For His Comments About Kevin Hart Cheating

When Joe Budden spoke about Kevin Hart‘s 2017 cheating scandal on his “Joe Budden Podcast” earlier this month, he got slammed by many.

The rapper turned podcast host was commenting on Hart and his wife Eniko Parrish addressing the scandal on the Netflix docuseries “Kevin Hart: Don’t F**k This Up”

Hart admitted that he cheated with a woman named Montia Sabbag in a Las Vegas hotel, shortly after an audio tape of the tryst was leaked. Parrish said she was humiliated by the whole thing, but wasn’t ready to break up her family.

“He works really hard,” said Budden when he first talked about Hart’s cheating. “Like, I can see how n—s cheat. In thinking about how hard he works. Sometimes you’re not home but for 10 seconds in the day, for however many days, and I as a man can understand how that can be difficult. 

“I know how I was feeling just going to work however many hours,” he added.” I was going to work and spending very little time at home.” 

Budden’s comments pretty much went viral, and the ladies of “The Real” are some of the people who weighed in.

“I think it’s hysterical, just the part of him saying, ‘You know how hard he works?’ ” said co-host Adrienne Bailon-Houghton. “Does the working affect his integrity, his moral standing, his moral compass? I don’t think it does.”

“Cheating is selfish,” Tamera Mowry-Housley followed. “You have to realize that you’re not just affecting yourself by doing that, you’re affecting other people. If you have children, there are children that are going to be a part of that.”

Loni Love spoke on cheating as well and blamed black men’s infidelity on slavery, which she got skewered for.

Then on an episode of “The Joe Budden Podcast” that came out earlier this week, Budden said his words were turned around, and he never said cheating was okay.

“Why is the art of actually understanding someone dead? The art of understanding is not the same as condoning or agreeing,” he expressed. “I get that some people in the world don’t know what words mean. Understanding something is not co-signing it, condoning something or agreeing with something.” 

“I hate that everything has to turn into a gender war, because for me this wasn’t a gender war type of thing. This is a human thing,” Budden added. “I wasn’t saying, ‘He’s a guy and he works hard, and he has money and he’s powerful, so he should be able to cheat.’ I don’t know where that interpretation came from.” 

The reality star also accused “The Real” co-hosts of not listening to his full discussion, only a short clip of it.

“So no, it is not okay to cheat. It is not okay for Kevin Hart to cheat,” Budden stated. “Ladies of ‘The Real,’ that was never said here, and I hate when we are just presented a certain way, when we’re in this new age of just clip floating so we only go by the clip.”

A lot of folks left YouTube comments about Budden’s conversation, and many sided with him. 

“I agree with Joe, a lot of people either don’t have a grasp of the English language or willfully choose to disregard it,” one person wrote. “Modern society speaks emotions and feelings more than facts and context. I understand where Joe is coming from.”

“I loved this breakdown,” another person chimed in. “I can totally see what Joe is saying and women forgive cheating ALL THE TIME so let’s cut the crap like we don’t get it ladies. Understanding is not condoning and they took it out of context and they all ran with it as they always do with what sounds good.”

Even as a woman I understood exactly what Joe was trying to convey in the past video he never said it was okay,” a third person wrote.