Steve Harvey: Leaked Show Staff Memo Is Latest Display Of Star’s Problematic Persona
An unapologetic Steve Harvey sat down with Entertainment Tonight on Thursday to clarify the basis of an alleged leaked memo that was initially sent out to the crew members of his recently-relocated talk show.
In the email, which reportedly was delivered at the start of the fifth and final season of Harvey’s syndicated Steve Harvey Show to the talk series’ production team, as the Inquisitr shared, the 60-year-old comedian and Family Feud host demanded that staffers refrain from addressing him behind the scenes after being previously “taken advantage” of by an unknown few.
“There will be no meetings in my dressing room. No stopping by or popping in,” Steve wrote.
“Do not come to my dressing room unless invited. Do not open my dressing room door. If you open my door, expect to be removed.”
Later in his letter, Steve outright states that no one is allowed to talk to him at all on-set, without first making a prior appointment to gain his undivided attention.
“Do not wait in any hallway to speak to me. I hate being ambushed,” Harvey expresses.
“I promise you I will not entertain you in the hallway, and do not attempt to walk with me. I have been taken advantage of by my lenient policy in the past. This ends now. No more.”
In his sit down with ET, Harvey went on to explain that he wrote the memo after constantly being “ambushed” by certain Steve Harvey Show staff members who preyed on his kindness.
This email that Steve Harvey sent to his staff……https://t.co/GGsIow0Z3i pic.twitter.com/34l3SX4NEo
— Yashar Ali ? ????? (@yashar) May 10, 2017
“I could not find a way to walk from the stage to my dressing room, to sit in my makeup chair, to walk from my dressing room to the stage or to just sit and have lunch, without somebody just walking in,” the funny man relayed.
“I’ve always had a policy where [my staff] can come talk to me. [There are] so many people are great around here, but some of them just started taking advantage of it.”
After a bit of self-realization about his “open door” policy, Harvey says that he came up with the memo as a way to proverbially “shut” those staffers out and protect his private space.
“Everybody wants the freedom to be able to move around. I just didn’t want to be in this prison anymore where I had to be in this little room, scared to go out and take a breath of fresh air without somebody approaching me, so I wrote the letter. I don’t apologize, but it’s kind of crazy that people took this thing and ran [with it].”
Notwithstanding Steve’s written memo from his staffers’ “prison,” the television personality has previously been called out for various displays of outright rudeness and inconsideration toward others, such as when he mocked Asian men who were romantically attracted to Caucasian women on an episode of The Steve Harvey Show back in January, as Variety detailed.
“[The episode] which aired on Jan. 6, featured Harvey mocking the title of self-help books. After showing the cover of How to Date a White Woman: A Practical Guide for Asian Men, Harvey launched into a minute-long monologue about how no women — white or otherwise — would ever go out with an Asian man.”
Following a public outcry from members of the Asian community, including fellow memoir writer and executive producer Eddie Huang (Fresh Off the Boat), Harvey issued an apology via Twitter.
Wanted to share this today. pic.twitter.com/mpKGBZic5k
— Steve Harvey (@IAmSteveHarvey) January 17, 2017
Additionally, Steve’s ongoing association with former reality host and now-president Donald Trump for both personal and political reasons, continues to negatively affect Harvey’s “nice guy” persona; but none more so than with the African-American community, Steve’s arguably largest audience.
“A lot of y’all hurt me,” Steve admitted on his radio show back in January following a meeting with Trump at Trump Tower in New York, as Atlanta Black Star transcribed.
“I didn’t expect the backlash to be so fierce. But I also understand that if I’m going to keep getting stabbed at, then at least while you’re stabbing me, you should understand my intent for even taking the meeting in the first place. I have an obligation to take a seat at the table when invited [and] if you’re not at the table, you can’t refuse the menu or suggest what we should be eating.”
Reps for Harvey’s new show, Steve, have not commented on the memo. Production is set for sometime this fall.
[Featured Image by Bryan Steffy/Stringer/Getty Images]
