Kevin Hart explains why he publicly sticks up for friends Ellen DeGeneres and Nick Cannon in their recent scandals

Deadline

"Well, I don’t lose sight of the definition of friendship, and in our business, it’s one thing that people don’t really hold on to," he tells Deadline. "There’s a lot of relationships that are fake, and there’s some that are real. In my case, the ones that are real are the ones that I’m always going to be adamant about speaking on behalf of. I know the people that both of them are, and knowing the people, all I can say is my experiences with those people. That’s not to take away from what other people are saying that they have had, and that they have done. It’s just to highlight what I’m saying I know, and what I can speak on behalf of. In times like this, I know also how dark it gets. I know how lonely it gets, because I know that these are times when people just turn their back on you. So for the ones that you love, that are close to your heart, you just want them to have some support, when it seems that there is none out there, and that’s just who I am as a person. That goes for anybody, across the board, that I consider a friend, and that’s not a big group of people. Everybody doesn’t get that conversation and that feeling from me, but the ones that do, I’m serious about it. I’m true to it, and it doesn’t mean that you have to speak on behalf of the problem."