The co-hosts of ABC News’ “The View” warned on Friday of the dangers of caving to a “mob mentality” that demands the firing or punishing of celebrities and professionals who used homophobic or politically incorrect language on their social media accounts years ago.

The conversation focused on actor and comedian Kevin Hart. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had selected him to host the Oscars in February 2019.

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But Hart (pictured above center) came under fire for tweets he wrote from 2009 to 2011 featuring gay jokes — even though he had previously apologized for the tweets during a 2015 interview with the Rolling Stone.

The tweets have now been deleted from his account.

One tweet read, “Yo if my son comes home & try’s 2 play with my daughters doll house I’m going 2 break it over his head & say n my voice stop that’s gay.”

Another read, “Why does @wayne215 have so many pictures of me in his phone!!! What ru some type of FAT F** that takes pic of small black men all day?”

To make matters even worse for Hart, he shared some homophobic jokes during his “Seriously Funny” comedy routine in 2010 when he said, “One of my biggest fears is my son growing up and being gay.”

“I have nothing against gay people. Do what you want to do, but me, being a heterosexual male, if I can prevent my son from being gay, I will,” Hart added.

He initially refused to apologize again, urging people on Instagram to “stop searching for reasons to be angry.” Ultimately he deleted the offensive tweets.

He also said, “If you don’t believe that people change, grow, evolve? I don’t know what to tell you … I LOVE EVERYBODY.”

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The comedian also posted a video saying he got a call from the Academy telling him to apologize — or else they’d find a new host.

“I chose to pass,” he said, noting that he had apologized before.

But Hart changed his tune early Friday morning by apologizing and walking away from his hosting duties, tweeting, “I have made the choice to step down from hosting this year’s Oscar’s … This is because I do not want to be a distraction on a night that should be celebrated by so many amazing talented artists. I sincerely apologize to the LGBTQ community for my insensitive words from my past.”

“I’m sorry that I hurt people … I am evolving and want to continue to do so. My goal is to bring people together not tear us apart. Much love & appreciation to the Academy.”

“I hope we can meet again,” Hart added.

Some of “The View” co-hosts expressed their concerns over Hart’s treatment.

“Eventually he did apologize and he said he’s bowing out so he’s not a distraction on a night that’s supposed to celebrate artists. He said he’s sorry for this before. He has. He’s apologized before,” co-host Joy Behar said. “So how many times does he need to apologize, do you think?”

Later on in the segment, co-host Sunny Hostin (above left) said, “The problem that I have with it is sort of … this kind of mob mentality that we’re seeing — these forced apologies, everybody sort of jumping on the bandwagon, not allowing people to evolve, not allowing people to own up to things.”

Related: Kevin Hart Won’t Host the Oscars Because of Homophobic Tweets

“I think what was so weird to me was he has apologized for this before,” Hostin added. “And for the Academy to then force him to apologize again, I just — I don’t understand that. And there has been this mob now that’s saying, you know, ‘He’s a horrible person. He’s a horrible person.’ And the tweets were despicable, but when is an apology enough?”

Co-host Meghan McCain (above right) agreed with Hostin. “So I never heard of these tweets before. I actually didn’t know of the homophobic tweets that he had sent out before. But I also am against mob mentality stuff. And I also am not sure where the goal post is.”

McCain then pointed to the double standard she saw in how Hart and MSNBC host Joy Reid were treated for their past homophobic words.

Reid found herself in the middle of a firestorm in 2017 and 2018 for homophobic blog posts she wrote from 2007 to 2009. Although Reid apologized and insisted she has evolved as a person, she also claimed that her blog may have been hacked because she didn’t remember writing some of the offensive posts.

But MSNBC didn’t nix Reid.

McCain also pointed to the controversial firing of “Guardians of the Galaxy” director James Gunn this year after offensive old tweets of his resurfaced.

Co-host Abby Huntsman noted, “You can’t be someone, to your point, that watches Joy Reid and is one of her big fans and also be part of this mob mentality and be out there tweeting against Kevin Hart.”

Behar said, “These people need to stop making homophobic remarks. Including Kevin Hart … We all agree on that. But if you want somebody squeaky clean, you’re going to have to get a mime at the Oscars. Because everybody has something — especially comedians.”

Check out the discussion in the video clip below: