after announcing he was stepping down from hosting the 2019 Academy Awards in the wake of controversy over homophobic and transphobic comments he made in old tweets.

This new development comes after Hart taped an appearance on Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show, which will air Friday.

“I really want you to host the Oscars,” DeGeneres, a former Oscars host herself, says in a preview clip from her show. The talk show host goes on to reveal she personally called the Academy to let them know she would support reinstating Hart as the host.

“They were like, ‘Oh my God. we want him to host. We feel like maybe he misunderstood or it was handled wrong or maybe we said the wrong thing but we want him to host,'” DeGeneres tells Hart and the audience of her conversation. Later she comes back from commercial break introducing her guest as “this year’s Oscars host, Kevin Hart.”

“I think you have said a lot of amazing things. You’ve put a lot of things on my mind,” Hart tells DeGeneres during his hour-long interview. “I’m promising you I’m evaluating this conversation…Let me assess, just to sit in the space and really think. And you and I will talk before anything else.”