Kevin Hart: 'My mum is the angel on my back'

Kevin Hart says a prayer to his late mother Nancy every time he's about to walk onto a stage or a set, because he feels she's always there looking out for him.

The single mother, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, died of ovarian cancer in 2007 and the funnyman admits he owes his spirituality to her.

"I’m religious but I'm not in church every Sunday, I'm not constantly surrounding myself with the Bible but what I am, I’m true to how I was raised," he tells Oprah Winfrey in a new episode of her SuperSoul Conversations podcast. "My mom beat God in my head and made sure I understood, and what I am is I’m true to my mum. That’s how I was raised.

"It’s so easy for me to smile, achieving everything, because I feel like, yeah, my mum is right there smiling with me... Literally, I feel like there’s something on my back. Before I go on stage, before I set foot on set, (I say), 'Mum be the angel in my corner I know you always are.' That’s my prayer."

And she was an angel in real-life, too, when the Jumanji: The Next Level star started out on the stand-up comedy circuit and couldn't pay his bills.

"I said, 'I haven't paid my rent in a month, mum, where’s the rent at?'," he continues. "And she said, 'Are you reading your Bible?' I said, 'I don’t have time to talk about that right now. I’m late, I need the rent money'.

"Another two weeks go by. 'They’re going to evict me, mum.' (She says) 'Have you read your Bible?' A month (goes by). I go to her house with my eviction notice. They’re about to kick me out. She says, 'Talk to me when you read your Bible'.

"I go home and go, 'OK, let me open this Bible up', and six rent cheques fell out. She put all my rent cheques in the Bible. I opened it up and I felt like the biggest jerk ever. I sat there and that was the first time I ever read from the Bible."