Kevin Hart mourns the death of his father: ‘Gone but never forgotten’
posted by Jason Whitlock –
Jul 6, 2019
Kevin Hart’s dad passed away just days after his son revealed to PEOPLE that he had been diagnosed with cancer. Kevin opened up to PEOPLE about his dad’s struggles with the illness and how he wants to leave his mark on the world.
“I want to leave a mark. I want to leave a legacy,” Kevin said in a new interview with PEOPLE. “My dad would always say, ‘Remember a good memory is a good memory.'”
Kevin Hart has overcome many difficult health issues in his life, including a kidney transplant, a heart attack and a bout with blood cancer after the birth of his daughter Rose.
But he’s no stranger to difficult personal moments.
Kevin said the hardest time for him was when he revealed in 2016 to PEOPLE he had been diagnosed with cancer after having a kidney transplant in 2016.
“When I found out I had cancer, I was like, ‘I have to tell you the truth,'” Kevin said in his first interview about his father’s diagnosis. “I had to tell my doctors face to face. I was told my odds were pretty much a 1 in a million.”
But he wasn’t alone in his experience.
Just days after Kevin opened up to PEOPLE about the diagnosis, his father passed away. Kevin said his father, Michael Hart, wasn’t able to see the paper his son had written.
“I had no words for what I was feeling,” Kevin said. “I was just hurting. I was sad. My father was sick. My father was in the hospital. I was going to be all alone with this. I feel like I owe it to my father to tell his story. I owe it to my father to tell my story. I owe it to my father to make sure his story is told.”
“For me to be able to work with him, he gave me a chance to be here,” Kevin said. “He was the one person who showed me a way of life, who showed me how to love, who showed me how to be a friend, who showed me how to treat other people with love.”
Kevin was only a year old when his father passed away.
“He was a father figure. But I didn’t