Kevin Hart began working as a stand-up comedian soon after graduating from high school, eventually migrating to bigger clubs in New York and Los Angeles. In 2009 he released his first stand-up album, I'm a Grown Little Man. His 2011 tour, Laugh at My Pain (also the name of a resulting documentary), netted $15 million, and since then Hart has happened to big-time Hollywood achievement, appearing in comedies like Think Like a Man, About Last Night, Get Hard, Central Intelligence and two Jumanji features.

Hart was brought into the world on July 6, 1979, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The most youthful of two young men, Hart was raised by his mother, Nancy, who assumed the job of a single parent because of her husband's chronic battles with cocaine and the law.

All through much of Hart's childhood, his father, Henry Hart, was in and out of jail and rarely around. As a coping mechanism, the youthful Hart tracked down humor to battle back the pain of his childhood. Henry has since cleaned up his life, and father and child have reconnected.

The experience of those extreme years would later provide a hotspot for much of Hart's comedy. "The jokes," he has said of his stand-up, "come from a real experience." As a kid, Hart was fixated on stand-up comedy and comedians in general, and he listed Chris Exhaust and J.B. Smoove as some important influences.

After graduating from high school, Hart moved to New York City and later to Brockton, Massachusetts. Yet, it was back in his hometown of Philadelphia, while working as a shoe salesman, that Hart's stand-up career began to blossom.

It was an unpleasant start. For a time, Hart looked for some kind of employment at a variety of small comedy clubs, working under the stage name of Lil' Kev the Bastard. Barely any saw Hart, and the people who did, didn't find him all that entertaining. "I was trying to be everyone," he once said. "I was so confounded. I didn't know what to do."

Under the guidance of Keith Robinson, a veteran comedian who began to mentor the more youthful comic, Hart began performing under his own name and creating material drawn from real-life experiences. Achievement eventually followed. After winning several amateur stand-up performances, he began performing regularly in clubs around the country.

Under the guidance of Keith Robinson, a veteran comedian who began to mentor the more youthful comic, Hart began performing under his own name and creating material drawn from real-life experiences. Achievement eventually followed. After winning several amateur stand-up performances, he began performing regularly in clubs around the country.

Television has treated Hart well, as well: In 2012 he facilitated the MTV Music Awards, and around the same time, he landed a recurring job on the ABC comedy Modern Family. He has also appeared on such series as Real Husbands of Hollywood and Workaholics. In 2015 Hart was the host of the Comedy Central Roast of Justin Bieber.

The comedian also accepted an invitation in late 2018 to have the Academy Awards, however he ventured down from the job right away afterward because of an uproar over homophobic comments made earlier in his career.