‘You don’t realize the impact that your mistakes can truly have — when the kids get involved, it’s a different feeling,’ the comedian told actor Will Smith on a Father’s Day edition of Red Table Talk

Kevin Hart says the biggest hurdle to overcome in the wake of his cheating scandal was reconnecting with his 16-year-old daughter, Heaven.

“I can say having a little girl in my life, it’s tough. You don’t realize the impact that your mistakes can truly have — when the kids get involved, it’s a different feeling,” Hart, 41, told Will Smith on a special Father’s Day edition of the Facebook Watch series Red Table Talk.

While he said his own “armor” is strong, he admitted to getting emotional when his children are affected by his own past actions.

“It’s very hard to bother me, but when your child shows disappointment, shows emotion, shows ‘I don’t understand why,’ and you’ve gotta have those conversations, well, now the head drops for the first time,” he said. “And now you’ve realized that there’s a different emotional chord that can be pulled on you that nobody else has the privilege of ever touching.”

Hart continued: “And my daughter touched on that chord, man, you know, when me and my wife went through what we went through, and the whole cheating display… my talk with Heaven. Goddamn. Goddamn, that was one like no other. Getting my daughter back. Getting my daughter to understand that I was sorry, that I made a mistake. … That was real.”

“My daughter was tough on me. Until this day, she’s tough on me,” Hart said, while sitting down with fellow actor Smith, 52, to discuss their biggest parenting mistakes, their ex-wives, their kids’ relationships and more, including personal confessions, revelations and important life lessons.

Smith is a father of three, while Hart shares two children with ex Torrei Hart (Heaven and Hendrix, 14) and two with wife Eniko Parrish (Kenzo, 3, and Kaori, 8 months).

As Hart told Smith elsewhere in the conversation, “When your child shows disappointment — you don’t realize the impact that your mistakes can truly have.”

Parrish, 36, was eight months pregnant with the couple’s first child when the comedian cheated on her. He issued a public apology on September 16, 2017.

In the apology, Hart addressed the news of his encounter with model Montia Sabbag and the subsequent alleged extortion attempts that took place.

Hart opened up about why his wife stayed by his side after the scandal in a 2020 appearance on The School of Greatness podcast, in which he recalled Parrish coming “to an amazing conclusion of, ‘I like the fact that we have a family, that we have a household, and I like the fact that we now got a job to do to get better.’ ”

Hart said he remembered Parrish telling him, “‘That’s what you owe me. You owe me the get-better.’ ”

Acknowledging that his wife “held me accountable,” the actor added that it “wasn’t a walk in the park.”

Hart continued, “But it was her understanding that we don’t let the outside world affect our inside, and I credit her for setting that tone.”