Former Roc-A-Fella co-founder Damon Dash, aka Dame Dash, has claimed that he discovered Kevin Hart and has called the comedian out for not helping him back.
He shared his emotionally inspired remarks with Art of the Dialogue, where he opened up about some of his broken relationships in Hollywood.
Dash listed actor-comedian Kevin Hart, whose first acting role was in Dash’s film State Property 2, among people who have ignored him.
The 53-year-old entrepreneur stated, “I discovered him. That was the first movie he was ever in.”
“So, you know, I was looking for comedians, and I went to the club…I told him I had a movie I wanted him to be in, and I put him in the movie the next week. I directed them. That was like my first, that was like my directorial debut,” he said, according to Black Enterprise.
He then cast Hart in another film, Death of a Dynasty, which Dash claimed was the comedian’s second acting role and underlined the early promise he saw in the budding celebrity.
“I thought he was funny. I knew that he was safe, that white people were funny. He didn’t mind being teased,” Dash said of Hart.
When asked how his friendship with the famous comedian is going right now, Dash said that while they are still on friendly terms, Hart “don’t help” whenever he asks for favors.
He explained, “I’ll be like, ‘yo, could you put,’ he won’t put, you know, he won’t help me promote anything I’m doing.”
Dash believes that he shouldn’t have to ask for financial favors from the stars he has helped in the past.
He emphasized, “You know what I mean? Like, to be honest to me, the amount of people that I actually put on, I should never be broke, ever in life,” Dash said. “I should never have to fund nothing. I should never have to struggle.”
Dash continued: “I should just look like, it should just be an anonymous bag with money all the time. The amount of people whose lives I’ve changed, if they were like on it, like, I shouldn’t even have to move, but it seems like the people that I help the most, they end up resent me the most. I don’t know why. Like, I should never have to ask for nothing.”
According to the publication, Dash was forced to pay $805,000 to director Josh Webber and Muddy Water Pictures after losing a copyright infringement lawsuit in March 2022. To pay the court judgment, the former hip-hop entrepreneur sold off his Roc-A-Fella Records interests in 2024.
Since his financial decline, Dash has given interviews in which he expresses his dissatisfaction with several of his former colleagues.
According to The Source, he recently lashed out at his longtime rival, Jay-Z, during an interview, comparing the iconic rapper to the villainous Penguin from Batman, saying, “He’s ruthless like that.”
Meanwhile, his recent comments about Hart have sparked backlash on social media.
One person tweeted, “Black people are the only race that expects a favor back; we’re also the only race that feels like you owe us if you make it big; we’re also the only race that would rather someone do badly than be more successful than you.”
“So you helped him, so you should be able to extort him for the rest of his life?” another user questioned. “But Dame, you told us all to boss up. Pocket-watching Kevin Hart and complaining about him not returning the favor is not what I would have expected.”