Steve Harvey is here in the club! The comedian, actor and host of Family Feud sits down with Shannon for a wide-ranging conversation on his career, family and tells some incredible stories. It's a conversation not to be missed!
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My first marriage. I got married when I was twenty four. I messed that up the second one. I don't need another drink. I just said I don't do too. But you got me in here now.
All my life, grinding all my life, sacrifice hustle peg price. One slice got the brother Geist swap all my life. I'd be grinding all my life, all my life, grinding all my life, sacrifice hustle peg price. One slice got the brother of Geist squat all my life, I'd be grinding all my life.
Hello, Welcome to another edition of Club Shaha. I am your host, Shannon Sharp. I'm also the propriet of Club Shahe and the guy that's stopping by for conversation on a drink today. When we started Club Shahe, we told you we're gonna try to bring you the biggest atholie entertainers and celebrities, and we think we've landed Moby Dick today. He's one of the most recognized and beloved global entertainers in the world, one of the most powerful voices in media. He's an Emmy Award winning TV personality and talk show hosts, New York Times bestselling author, National Association of Broadcaster Hall of Famer. He has a star on the Hollywood Walker Fan A comedy legend, top rated radio personality, popular game show and TV host, producer, actor, writer, fashion entrepreneur, media monger, investor, motivational speaker and innovative business leader, active humanitarian and global philanthropists. A true true renaissance man, not other than the great Steve Harvey.
Steve all that that centro I've ever had? Did I leave it to thing? Are? Probably did, but don't worry about it. The card on is so big, Steve, the car. We're out of time. How you doing, hey, man, I'm good. First of all, let me say this, man, I don't do a lot of podcasts. I've only done a few, But when you call man, I had to do it. Because of all the people on television, your commentary, you're the one dude that thinks just like me. Man. You ain't probably said nothing. I ain't disagreed with nothing. I like your straight your honesty, your forwardness. Man, that country ass baritone that you'd be mispronouncing words? Me, you and Perkins, Me and you and Perkins going to have a podcast talking about Yeah they said it. Steve.
I know you, I know you. You you know, health is wealth, and you're doing the right thing. But would you would you would your grace me and have a drink with me. This is actually is my own kind. I actually do that. Don't worry about that. Pull that in there.
I drink. I drink a little bit of a little bit. Yeah, I ain't gonna be drunk. No, no, no, no, We're not gonna be drunk. No, we're not gonna be I ain't never been drunk before in my life. Man. That's a good thing. Yeah, I've never had more than one drink.
That's a good thing too. My brother, to all the success, yank you brother. We're gonna send your here. We're gonna send your way with a bottle of death.
Oh that's smooth. You know we need now is a cigar. Yeah, that's all right. I appreciate it. No, that's pretty good, man. So how you been, man? I'm good, you know, working on my health, man, most important thing right now. I'm good man. I really can't. You know. I've entered a new phase. Okay. I was out the country recently and I was kept talking to God about these deals, you know, and we get right to the edge, and we almost get there. Something would happen. Then we'd almost get to another one and something would happen, and then I'll just figured it out. Man. God said, I want you to go home. And I came back out the country and I just went home. He said, I know you asking me for a lot of stuff, but I want you to just take take a minute and look at everything out and gave you. Look at everything out and done for you. Now, just let me know you all right, and then we'll go from now. Right. But I had to come home, man, for the past couple of months and just look at all he'd have done for me. I'm good.
So you were thinking that because the deals weren't happening, God revealed you you need to go home and be thankful for what I've already given you instead of what you don't have right now.
Cause my focus was into what I was trying to make happen, and I was losing sight of what had already happened. Right, And if you want more, you gotta be grateful for what you have. But I was so busy wanting the more. I forgot to focus and take a look at what he'd already done. I came home, man, and went home, sat around my house for a while, went down to my ranch, did some fishing. Just look. I looked at all that space and stuff, and all of a sudden I realized, I said, man, I'm really good. I forgot Okay, God, I see what you were saying. Right, yeah, I He'll give you some more. But would you mind what you have? Would you just please please be little bit appreciative or what I already done.
You mentioned your health as well, and I see you. I follow you, and I see you exercising, I see you eating. Right, What was the turning point that you said? You know what, I'm I'm healthy, but I believe I can do better. I can be more healthy.
Well, you know, man, I had a couple of health issues. Man, I discovery I'm sixty six, man, So I got to looking around, man, and I had had high blood I had this thing called Charguson's which is immune disorder. Okay, you know, I get my blood work done about four times a year, Okay, but white blood count was low, couldn't get it up. And then I was struggling with a sleep apnel. Okay, you know, I was waking up in the middle of the night. I had all this going on, man, and I said, wait a minute, man, hold up, I got I gotta do something. So I went to this company, man, and I found this this brother who was one of the top nutritional scientists ever come out of Harvard named John John Lyon, and I went to him and I said, hey man, I found out that drinking green drinks is really good for you. But I just can't gag it down every morning. You know what I'm saying, kale like I don't really understand k awful. I don't. It's not in the Bible. It's not. Kale is for four legged animals only. You gotta have a short, square teeth that's blocked at the top because you gotta you gotta get that kale in your mouth and work with it. You gotta have. And I just gagged it down every morning. I said, hey, man, can y'all come up with a green drink from it that tastes good? And so we formally about a year and a half. It took then a lot of tests, and finally we came up with this product called it Elevate You, this delicious green drink, and I started taking it. I started feeling better, and it actually gave me more energy. So then I was able to get in that gym and I can started dressing some of these real issues. And right now, man, I'm getting there.
Man, are you said that you were struggling sleep? Was it because you have a hard time? Because I think people that are successful really have a hard time turning their mind off. Boys, They constantly thinking, They constantly like I need to do this, I need to do this, I need to do this, and so the mind is constantly focused.
It never relaxes, so you can't sleep. That's exactly right, That's exactly it. And the whole thing is you got to turn your mind off. Yes, you know, they come up with stuff like melowtnin or something like that, and then they got a little thing called LDN and all this here. But really, man, when you hustling and grinding, yes, that's that's a cost for everything. Correct. You know, you don't get to where we are people like this. You don't get here free. This come with a cost, and it's gonna cost you a lot of free time. It's gonna cost you a lot of your time. And that's just it. You know, people they got mad at me one time because I did drop the video while I was talking about if you want to get rich, you can't sleep eight hours, and then here come all the haters online talking about Steve Harvey prefers wealth over health. No, I don't. I would give anything to be fully healthy. But at the same time, if you trying to get it and talking about it, really have it, you gotta lock and load. Man, you ain't eight If you sleep eight hours, you sleep a third of your life. One third of your life is spentially. Now you tell me how you're gonna get successful in the United States of America and you sleep a third of your life, help me understand that, how that's possible? Then they're gonna, well, open sleep Oprah billionaire, right.
But Oprah has open didn't sleep like that trying to accumulate that. Your sleep she probably sleep twenty hours a day.
Now she can sleep, she.
Can be weak.
No, she ain't got to wake up for she can lay. Opra can lay that probably about four five years. Wake up, still have plenty of money. I sleep four five years, man, I got to start over.
You from a small town in Welk, West Virginia. Yeah, what was life like growing up in that small town? How how long did you stay there until I was five, Okay, so you and then spent a whole lot of time. Then you moved to Cleveland, so most of your formative years, what you remember is in Cleveland, correct.
Right, But that form because every summer I had to go back, oh and work the farm. But my uncle and grandfather, okay, because we had raised two hogs, right, and we killed them in the falls, so we had to go back in the summer. I had to go work all the crops, cause that's what we ate. Come. My daddy was a construction worker, right, so he couldn't My father couldn't work in the winter time, right, So we had to go down here and kill these two hogs and get all these crops from the summer, you know, put them in the salt salt house. You all like this, yes, And that was work, man, You had to work. So I really learned a lot growing up in the country. But then I was city boy too, so I had the best of both worlds. Man. You know, I ain't flush it toilet. I was five years old. I ain't know what that was, right, I ain't know they had I ain't know you could cut your faucet on in your house right. You know, so I learned a lot of I was poor, but I ain't. I ain't really know it because everybody around you was poor. Everybody went to the bathroom outside, Yeah, ain't. Nobody had no water fall, whale water, even the white people.
See you know what.
See That's why I think kind of like when you say that you and I have a share a lot of the same ideas, because I grew up in rural South Georgia and.
I didn't take ah.
I didn't really take a shower in a house until I was.
In the NFL. I was twenty one, really too. Yeah.
We had no indoor run in, no no indoor plumbing, no running water. We drank whale water. I went outside the first twenty years. I didn't know what it was like to use a bathroom inside. See people, but I see you see you said you sixty six, right, yeah, I'll be fifty five in June.
This was the eighties. This wasn't nineteen sixty. This wasn't nineteen fifty, nineteen forty. This was the eighties until.
Until my brother purchased my grandmother house in September of nineteen eighty.
Yeah.
Well, the first time I actually used the bathroom in someone's house.
Other than that, I went outside. See that's you know, the average person don't even know. They can't understand. Like I talked to you a lot, a lot, you know how a lot of young people, right, and they say, man, like my son's dad, you saw everything get invented. Yeah, color TV. You know, I saw we had TV. Well, the one dude had color TV on that street. We all went around his house. Just see color TV. Right, it was thirteen inches, about twenty five people be packed in it, you know, trying to watch his damn TV. I saw cell phones get invented. So you know, at the Internet, I saw all that. Man, So it's a it gives you a different appreciation.
I think you said that you had a speech impediment when you were growing up, and that you had a teacher that said you weren't gonna make it because you stuttered. Yeah, and there was someone in your community or someone in Deli that says, slow down, say what you want to, you know, take three and then start over again.
How did that make you feel? When you like, she.
Crushed my I'm a kid and she already crushed tea. Yes, he's supposed to lift you that this dream killing herself? You know, I said, what kind of you? Said the fir class because she we had to write an assignment what you want to be when you grow up? On the first day of school, right sixth grade, and I write, I want to be on TV. She called everybody name, had him stand up. Then she made me come to the front. I go to the front. I think I'm finna get a gold star. I got the best answer and right because I knew all my lambs were better because Lone Cage had wrote on his paper he won't be a doctor. His ass couldn't even read in the reading group. So I don't know how lone it gonna be. No damn doctor. This has got to be. So at least I wrote something that had a chance happening. Lone ass got about a bigger chance of being a doctor as I got to walk in my ass to the moon by Friday. So when she called me up there man and I she said, why did you write this on your paper? And I said, because that was our assignment for today. And then I had a little stuttering problem. So I was studying a little bit, and she said, who do you know on TV? In this neighborhood, and so I started. By the tone of her voice, I could tell that this wasn't going the way, This wouldn't feel bold gold stop by this. He was trying to break me in front of these kids. And she was doing a damn.
Good job right too.
She was crushing me. Who in this neighborhood had been on TV? Who in your family ever been on TV? Who in this school been on TV? And what makes you think you can be on TV? And look at you standing there? You can't even talk now, you write something more reasonable on your paper? She crushed me. Man, I said, damn, this is a teacher, right, you know this is in the sixty eight man. Right, I'm sitting here looking at this lady like god dog. But I just I kept my paper and took it home. And Ma Mama said, your daddy gonna beat you when you get home for being as smart at it, cause she wuld call home, said your child is smart at right? Cause I wanted to be on TV. Everybody a basketball player, football player, right. I don't like tackle. R I ain't like it. You know, you throw me on the ground. I want to fight, you know, I ain't. I ain't good at this right. So when my father came home, she said, slick, this boy been a small attic up at the school. And he said, well, what what'd you do? I said, I wrote on the paper I want to be on TV. My father said what's wrong with that? And I saw a little glimmer of hope because I wasn't gonna get this ass whop and I thought I was gonna write. He said, well, your boy can be whatever he want to be. And I it was like a thought. I was finn't get executed, you know, because when my daddy came home it was time for that. He was the executioner, right. My mama was a judge, she had down the sentence. My daddy was the execution at the house. So I'm finna get executed. And then when he said that, I the red phone rang from the governor's oarfic. He gotta him free him, and he said, you don't worry about that. You keep that paper and you read your paper every morning every now and I did that. I kept that paper till I was about twenty seven years old. And then I got in comedy twenty said I didn't get on I was twenty two. I was thirty eight years old. Wow, so in school?
Were you a good student in school?
I don't know you paused you that? Yeah, I was trying to figurette what are you? I was down. I had perfect attendence because mission school was I would get murdered, right, my father mouth. They didn't play that.
But you had to work. If you miss school, they put you in the field. They wasn't sick. You couldn't stay home because you were sick. You had to work.
Sick. Yeah, you had to work. What do you mean you sick? Get your hands up to school and learn yourself something? Right, I was. I couldn't be sick, right, I went to school. I wasn't a good student, man, because I just wasn't interested, right, I just were you a class clown? Not at all?
So because a lot of times, Steve you don't, we didn't they call it bullying. We called it picking or he picking at such and such. The kids pick at you because you had this speak.
Problem, or I have a studing problem, and you can't have a studing problem at no public school in Cleveland, m oh Man. And then big little boy with some stuttering un I come in the room and they have my silhouette on the chalkboard. They held my nose and then my lips would go all the way to the other end of the chalkboard and they say, Steve, guess who that is? I know who the hell is? And you know? And then they talk to me and they go, Lily, look, look, literally listen T T T. So I took a speech uh impediment or speech therapist came right, and that's when I knew I was in trouble. Cause speech therapists for people who stutter, they don't they've never studied, so they can't fix a stutter, right, So they give you these dumb ass uh do you drills? Yeah s A avoid words with p R in it right, avoid words with st in it. My name, Steve W Lady, where are we going with this now? So now I gotta avoid my own damn name Right now, I'm sitting here, man, trying to what's your name? And man, it was just a disaster. Man. I got picked on a lot. And then but that's what that's where I started my wit at because I had to develop comeback. Yeah, because I was the target all day. And so when we went to the basketball court, and that's the one game I could play was hoops, because I had hops. I was real thin, but Lord have mercy, I could fly. But I would go to the court and stand behind the chain link link fist, and I'd be talking so much trash. I would put my lips up against the chain link fence and nothing to be out there on the court but my lips, and I'd be talking much trash man, and everybody be dying laughing, And uh, that's when, that's when I've learned my first lesson of how to study the room. I was talking about this dude so bad. One time. He got tired of me and he said, a little man, keep on, I'm will hurt you. But it was some girls watching. Oh you can't, you can't let it go. No, I got to go hord, Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. So now I'm pressed up against the fence. Now I don't see he the loop Rown. I'm watching the game. I'm looking for him. I don't see. I didn't know he had loop Rown behind me. When I realized where he had, he had his whole hand against the back of my head. He was pushing my eyes and everything. That dude was hammling me. Boy, he got me good. And that's when I first learned. Okay, you got to learn how to read the room because all these jokes and that was the beginning of it, you know, was talking trash. Right.
So you you you're in Cleveland, you're going back, but you're basically the majority of your years in Cleveland. What was it about Cleveland that helped shape young Steve into what we see Cleveland hard?
Man? Cleveland hard? You've been to Cleveland, I have it, ain't it ain't it ain't nothing kind Cleveland. It's a tough city, right. If you know, if you come out of Cleveland, it's like coming out of Detroit. If you come out of Cleveland, you can make it right. You know. You look at the dudes like our senior Hall, right, Drew Carrey. You know, cats like that come from Cleveland. Man Arsenials. Uh, daddy was a minister over there cause he went to John Adams, I went to Glenville. We both went to Kent State, Okay, you know, and uh, it's just a hard place. Man. It was a lot of gangs, but it wasn't gangs like today. Everybody was in a gang cause we had to cover each other when we walked to school, right, So we was you know, the Jets, and we had to cross Pee Wee Marquis to Delamore's the Devil Disciples or Lord Noble Prophets. We had to cross they territory to go to school, right, So it was a track meet right all the way to school and all the way back. Then you had to have your dudes with you and the you know, you know, we ride our bikes down the edge water park and fight on Saturdays at the church parking lot. You bring six, i'm'a bring six. Now. If you bring six, you stupid, because I'm gonna bring nine. Whatever the greed numberblehood that I padded it right, we go down there. So everybody in my neighborhood had hands, right, we threw hands, man, everybody could box. That's what got me in gold and gloves all like that. And it was just my father's rigid upbringing man about manhood. Do what you say you're gonna do, be honorable, be tough, and never quit that that. And then my mama was a Sunday school teacher. Okay, So that combination of faith in my daddy's work, ethic and manhood combined my mama's never pray, boy, pray, pray right, go to church, go to church, love the Lord. The Lord ain't gonna leave it. That's my mama just ingrained.
Don't understand that what she was saying when you were that young, because a lot of times you don't realize what they're saying is so impactful until you're much much older and they're gone.
Of course not. I didn't get it. I thought all this going to church just while we're in here, right, Monday night prayer, mat Tuesday night Bible study, Wednesday night crop. But we down what were doing? You know, I don't even want I don't. I got so sick of I was so sick of going to church. I asked my big brother one time, said, let me ask you something, how hot is hell? Because if he could have gave me a number that I could work with, like one twenty six, I was just gonna, like just gonna go to Hell right, because dog, I ain't on the sports teams or nothing, because I'm in church all the time. But I didn't get it. I didn't get it until I didn't really get it until I was homeless. I ain't really get it. And everything she said to me I heard it over and over and over and over and over. But as you right as a child. No, man, I didn't get it. I ain't see it. You say you went to Kent State? Why did you go?
And you said about the guy that was saying that he wanted to be a doctor. You had told me that you weren't a good student. Why would you go to college if you're not a good student?
A man tell you the truth. My best friend, Ricardo, I heard he was going to Kent State. I didn't even apply for college. But see, Kent was where they had killed the four kids the National Guard, so a lot of blacks quit going to college down there. So they had this thing called Cleveland Scholarship program that would give you free room and board if you went to Kent State. So he had signed up for that program. So when I found out he was going, I had no ambition of going to college. It never crossed my mind. I was gonna work construction with my daddy. It was like my two brothers. That's why I was gonna go. I was gonna be a construction work and every summer when I was in high school, I worked construction with my daddy. That's when I knew this ain't for me. No, I gotta do something else. Yeah, that's hard work, boy, just standing out on this bridge, it hot, with a hot tar mop in my hand. I said, no, I'm gonna go to college. But I went there. I didn't have no steady habits or nothing, because I had worked all through high school pick and pay and grocery stores and stuff like that. I had a bike, and when I was a senior man, I had enough credits while I was through with school at twelve o'clock at one o'clock, I was on my job. What da he can stay? How you done?
Because I wasn't done with my college. I wasn't done with high school at twelve o'clock. I ain't have no credit and I was. I was an okay student. I wasn't great. But you did enough. You did so you applied it. It was you wouldn't apply yourself. You were a good student. You didn't apply yourself? Did I was a better criminal? You talking about cheating? Boy, knew who the set nature. We had systems.
I'm gonna graduate right because we had systems, right, you know, we was getting tests. I was doing everything. I ain't gonna lie to you. I did everything, man, just graduate. So I had plenty of credits. Wasn't no aids or nothing like that. Only air of a guy was in gym physical. I got straight a's in gym, right because I loved anything to do with that. But I got out of school. I had enough. Plus Cleveland Public School, Man, come on, we had a Vale Victorian and all that, and I didn't even know what that was.
Right.
Yeah, I was at the graduation, just sitting there. We had six hundred ninety five people in my graduating class. Wow, I graduated six ninety six ninety five.
That's a huge school for back then.
No, it was three thousand people at our high school. We was number one track team in the state every year I was there. And Teddy Ginn just won the first state football championship for East Centy school in the history that Glenville bought special place. I went to school with Teddy Ginn. Okay, yeah, it's a special place. Man.
I heard you saying that when you did construction, you realized, like you were standing on that bridge with that hot tar up in your hand, this issu ain't from me.
Is that? And I tell kids the exact same thing.
What you said, have a lot of jobs as a kid, because it let you know what you don't want to do as an adult. Because if you a kid with all that energy and you don't want do that when you get on the door that you get older, you don't want no parts of that.
Man. It was, it was crystal clear to me. I said, Man, I'm not the laborer, dude. Now, my father made us no hard work. I've been working on farm since I was a kid. I was plowing behind a mule when I was eleven by myself. Wow, handling a till plow with that little one.
Yeah, I'm working.
So I always knew what hard work was. But that that thing I had wrote on the paper when I was ten, that never left my mind. I want to be on TV. I kept like I watched everybody that was on TV. Bill Cosby was the greatest influence because.
He was on I Spy and early sixty.
In sixty six. So when he came on TV, he was the first black person that had a speaking role. So I'm looking at this dude. Here he talking to white folks and telling them what to do. And then moremad Lee was out here right okay saying I am the greatest right. So I had worked that had we had the same birthday, man, So I adopted Muhammad al l as my mentor in my head. And when I met him for the first time, I cried for thirty minutes NonStop. I got the two pictures of my heroes. I met Richard Pride, I got the picture of the day I met Richard Pride, and I had a photo the day I met Mohammad Ali, and I'm in tears and both them photos because they meant that much to me that Mohammad Ali talking to white people, the way he was talking to him, calling rounds, I am the greatest. The thing he said that stuck with me the most was he said, I said I was the greatest before I was the greatest. Wow. And that etched in my brain. So that's what taught me to manifest things before it happens. I was saved all the time. And so those were the two greatest influences in my life. Man, that pushed me to want to follow that dream and pursue it.
You know, you didn't know what you wanted to be on television. You just wanted to be on TV. I had no idea. I didn't even think it was comedy. I knew I was quick quitted as a child, as my mama used to take me to church on Friday nights and get me prayed for because it's something.
Wrong with this boy. Because this boy just saved whatever on his mind. I couldn't cut it off, Shannon. If you said something to me, I said something back. And what I had to say was pretty shocked. And I got a lot of ass whippings for that. I got put in the principal's office for that. A lot of times. I just couldn't cut it off. My mama thought something was wrong with me. I didn't know that was my gift, but I didn't know how to harness it. I didn't know how to work it man, and I was just find it off. It took me until I went to kiss and a girl named Ida Washington who married one of my best friend's name Wayne Nawles. When I was a freshman, she was a sophomore. She set me down. She said, Steve, can I talk to you? I said yes. She said why did you come to college? Would you say a good question? Yeah, I said, I don't know. It's free. She said, you don't belong here. Wow. She said, you wasting your time. She said, you be You don't even belong here. She said, you don't know it, but you gonna be a star one day. Wow, And I will what. She was the first person ever told me that. I was a freshman sitting there going that sound good. I I won't that, but I don't. I have no concept of how to make it happen. And then as a freshman I heard Richard Pryde album. I was listening to wont It and I and then I went and got Everything Callsby Dead, everything Pride did. And then in nineteen seventy six, Pride came out with Bi Centennial Nigga. In that album, I memorized everything, everything, every joke he said, everything. So when the dudes was in the room getting high, I get a chair, stand up in the chair, do Pride do cos Me? I do stuff I had written, but I still didn't know it was comedy at that time.
So were you? So when did you start writing jokes? Okay, you fell in love with Pride, you fell in love with Cosby. You know what they did. So when did you start writing jokes and started morphing and moving in that direction?
Well? It was by accident, really, because the comedian named aj Jamaul Okay was a friend of mine and he worked at IBM and I worked at General Electric and he was doing comedy, but I didn't know what that was. And he would come to me and say, hey, man, I wrote this joke. What you think because he knew I was funny, right, and so I would correct it. I would say, no, man, say this, this and this right. And he would give me ten dollars every time I gave him a joke, So I'll make it extra forty dollars a week. Right, you know, I'm going, like you this nineteen eighty man, that's cool. I ain't know what he was doing with the joke, right. I never heard of a comedy club before. I had never heard of how I could be a professional comedian. And then one day I was over his house turning these jokes in and this girl named Gladys Jacobs was there and she said, you the dude that's writing these jokes for Jamal and I went yeah. She said he the funniest. He the funniest comedian at the comedy club. I said, really, with your jokes? Yeah, I mean he wrote his own. But I wrote you he and I was going, what what you talking about? She said, at the comedy club. He the funniest one. I said, what are you talking about comedy club? She said, you ain't never been to old comedy club. I said no, She said, why are you writing him? Don't sit here? Why don't you do them yourself? Now, I'm twenty six, about to be twenty seven, I got two kids, twins, I'm struggling, I'm lost. I still don't know what I want to do, but that I want to be on TV was just in the back of my head. You did so. She said, I'm gonna pick you up Tuesday night and I'm gonna take you to this place called Hilarities Comedy Club, and I want you to see what they do. So I went down there. She picked me up. We rolled forty minutes down. The Hilarities is in Cleveland. It's in akron, Ohick Kyle Hogle Falls, Ohio, right between Cleveland and Acting. Now I'm dust down there, right, but I can't stay. Yeah, I go in and she say sign up for next week. So I sign up. I don't even know what I'm doing, and I'm sitting down there and I'm watching these comedians go up and it's ten of them. It's amateur night, right, And I'm not laughing. She say, why you laughing, because I'm rewriting all these jokes. Oh okay, I'm just not I'm sitting in there going man, he should have said this, he should have said that. And finally got to number ten and they call this guy's name and he ain't there. And they called his name again and he ain't there, and they said, well he's not here. We're gonna go the next week's list. Give it up for Steve Harvey. Now I'm and I hear her say give it over to Steve Harvey. I turned to her and say, it's a dude in here, got the same name I got. She said, you a stupid son of a bitch. She was a hood chicks. He said, you a stupid son of a bitch. She looked at me so disgusting. You just a stupid son of a bitch. And I guess I was. She said that's you, and they kept clapping, and he said, where is Steve and she said here is Oh. He said, Steve, come on up. I just ran up on stage, man, and I was standing at his room full of all whites, and I said, hey, y'all, listen here. I ain't even supposed to be here. I'm on next week's show. And they started laughing. You know, white people laughed different, that's you just said that in front of black people. Well why is your ass?
Why are you up there?
Immediately, but white people thought it was the joke, and then I was lost. I didn't know what to do. She said, tell him about when you was boxing. She just hollowed out. So I was telling her on the way down about this dude named but No Taylor that I had fought at Golden Glove and it was a big duel, and it was a whole joke about how he had punched me one time and he didn't have nothing but left hook. He didn't have none but the left hook to the kidney. That's all he had. You could whoop his ass the rest of the fight. But if he got that left hook in, he was gonna crumble your ass. And he got it in, and I imitated how he got in the ring because he was pigeon. Told it a's white folks was dying laughing, so they got a laugh. And then I said, well, man, I gotta laugh. Let me keep telling joke. So I wrote another joke for Jamal that I hadn't sold him yet, and back then I can't do this joke now. But it was a joke. This is eighty five. It's a joke about AIDS, right, which was perfectly acceptable back then. Nobody knew the horror of it. It hadn't quite So I did this joke and they was dying laughing. Horrible joke, completely horrible, right, distaste for everything, knowing what you know today, But then died laughing. I walk off stage. They bring all ten of us back up, they have a clapof. I went in the clapoff. I win fifty dollars. You hooked. An agent came up to me and said, man, how long you been doing this? It's been to be been at just about three years, huh, I said yeah, saying I look right at him in lie problem. I got the fuck fifty dollars. I'm driving home forty minutes. I'm crying the entire ride home. Gladys looking at me. She said, what you're crying for? It ain't but fifty dollars, I said, you don't understand. I went to work the next day and quit my job with fifty dollars.
So that was the moment that you says, Okay, this is what I want to do with my life.
Ain't got nothing else. This is the brightest light bulb ever came on for me. That light bulb had never switched on better for me at nothing. Lincoln Electric, General Electric, Corfee cleaningrib Joint, Amway Products, Shackley Products, did Gregory Bohemian die Al Williams Insurance, Commonwealth Insurance. I had all these jobs. The light bulb went off. I was born that night, and I went to work next day and quit my job. Came home and told my mama I quit my job. She tried to talk me back into it. Told my brothers, they said, man, you crazy. Created a lot of problems with my ex wife. That wasn't her fault, man, that was me. I just I shouldn't have been nobody's husband at twenty four. I made a lot of mistakes, right. But I told my father, and my father again said, well boy, if you think you can make it, go ahead, And so that was it. I struck out.
You lucky because a lot of fathers back then it was like if you went to school, you did school and you came and did what the father did, or you dropped out of school and did what the father did.
Your dad was.
Very unique, Steve. I don't know if you realized it at the time, but you probably do now. He encouraged you to follow your dreams.
Because my daddy was funny man. He told me one time he came to see me, I was selling out arenas you know. My father told me he's a boy. I could have done that shit you doing? How that did it? Look at you? My father would cry all the time, look at it. He come to show man. My mother never saw me live because my mama saved. She didn't want to hear to cuss. It. Can't cuss my daddy. He came down there, fuddy cussing. My daddy was down there cussing with me.
My father, so go ahead, go ahead, fish.
My father was the front row one time in Mississippi at the DeSoto Center. He came to see me, hire and my brothers, and he turned around. They was laughing, and this lady said, you laughing real hard at this show. He said, you know who the fuck that he is up there? That's my boy. I made that motherfucker right there. That's my little motherfucker that looked that motherfucker come out of ease here. It's motherfucker down here. Because my father man was a hard ass cat, but he was the one that encouraged me to most me did.
I'm looking at guys like Samuel Jackson to Moran Morgan Freeman. Samuel Jackson found success at forty. Morgan Freeman was fifty two. You almost forty, you said thirty eight when you got your big break? Do you think that really helped you? Because you didn't have success so early. It made you appreciate the trials and tribulations that you had gone.
Through gone through to get to this point. You know it really did. Man. See, the thing I learned is gifted people. God almost runs you through the furnace with your gift before he allows the gift to manifest this Okay, like you, you had to go through all the different levels before you became a pro, correct, and it made you appreciate your career. You weren'd hard, Yes, your ass was a dog man. You came to every practice, everything because you appreciated it. Yes, if he had gave you that at eighteen, you to mess it up right, if he'd gave me this at thirty, I'd have ruined it. It's no way I could have this much success these checks at thirty. I'm telling you right now, I would have used all my powers for evil. A dog ain't nowhere it work. I would have been abusive. It's no way. The women that I would have gone for in my thin, well built bro cast light, if I had any money to go with that, if I could have got the haircut I could afford to get later on, if I could afford the wardrobe I could afford, then, oh, Lord, have mercy. I would have ruined it. I would have taken it and thrown it out the window. But he shaped me. He took all these years to gather me. He let me live in that car a little over three years now. I had learned a lesson. When I was homeless. I was good, and I told him. I said, hey, God, I'm good. You know I got it. I don't know what you're trying to tell me, but trust me, I got it. Try to tell me you got my undivided attention. Yeah, man, she said, nah, a little bit longer, Yeah, I got. I gotta, I gotta, I gotta. I gotta put keep you in this furnace a little bit more.
When you're living in the car, what's your besides obviously you're living in a car, But what's your lowest?
What? What?
What? He's like? Damn?
Where did that go wrong? Should I have done this? Should I have said?
What?
Where did that go wrong? What's your lowest?
Pensacola, Florida. You know, I used to park my car in a like expensive parking lots like Ritz Carlton, you know, stuff like that. You know, high end hotels, right cause they had the bathrooms. They had linen towels in the basket, and they had the bathroom doors that went all the way to the floor, right. So I would take them linen baskets and run hot water over the whole basket and get some soaping, go in there and shut the door, and I leather up and and shower, and then I wait till I don't hear nobody. I go out there and get another basket, wait it all up, and come and get all the soap off of One time, man, I was catching it real bad man. You know. I was in Pensacola, Florida, and I went into this bathroom and I got this soap and I leathered up. But there was a convention and they had let out, and so it was just me and coming in the bathroom continuously. So I couldn't couldn't get back out there to get to neck to fresh cloths. So I set the toilet lid down, and that soap just dried on me. And I was sitting there, man, and just tears. I said, man, look at my life. I'm washing up in bathrooms. I've been taking baths and washing up at rest stops and gas stations. I'm going home, man, I quit this enough. I'm gonna go home. Call my daddy, asking him, because my father had a simple rule. Once you leave here, do yeah, you can't come back. So I said, let me call home, ask him, can I can I just come home for six months? Find me another job. I remember thirties now, man, and see if I can start over. So I go home. I call him. He ain't home. Ain't nobody at home. But I had an answer machine and they attic. So I called an answer machine and a message came through from dude named Chuck Suddon. Rest in peace. He passed now, he said, Steve, his Chuck suddon from showtime at the Pollow. I just saw a videotape of yours are extremely funny. We gotta opening Sunday night. This is a Thursday. We gotta open this Sunday night at showtime at the Apollo Hall of New York. If you can get here, let me know. Now. This is after I done got up off.
This tor toilet. But you got drive soap on you.
So I just put my clothes on and I went out, got me a my quarters, and I called the house. And then this machine comes up. I still got soap on me. I got my clothes on. I'm giving up. I'm going home. I'm gonna drive to Cleveland. I'm gonna go home. He said, if you can get here Sunday, I appreciate it. Click call me if you can make it. Now. I'm in Prinscola, Florida. I got thirty five dollars, he said, Sunday. How the hell I'm gonna get to New York by Sunday. So now, man, I'm in the car. I'm wiped out again. The first chance I got to be on TV and I can't even get there. Oh, dog, you don't know, man, that moment for me was so crushing. I feel it. I don't like telling it because I feel it. Man, Hey, it crushed me. So I said, ah, this is God really. So I went back to check the machine make sure he said this Sunday. I called him back. He said the same thing. It's a great tape. If you can make it this Sunday, let me know. And when I got ready to hang up, it beaped again. Now this time it didn't beat before another beat came through. So that means another message, said Steve Harvey is Tom Sober from the comedy Caravan. I don't know where you are, but I got an opening tomorrow night in Jacksonville, Florida, at the Punchline on Bay Metals Boulevard. If you can get there, I got a hundred and fifty for you. I called Tom. I said, hey, man, I'm in Pensacola. I can make it Friday night. I went and made the one hundred and fifty dollars. I was so funny. He fired the guy whose place I was taking and said, if you do a Saturday night, I'll give you another one hundred and fifty. Saturday morning, I called showtime and the apollo asked Chuck. I said, hey, man, it is that thing still open for Sunday? He said, sure, it is for you. I said, I'll be there Sunday. I performed Sunday Night. Now. I got three hundred dollars. Eastern Airlines was open there and I got a ninety nine dollars ticket. Flew all the way to Hall of New York. Everything I had in two bags. Went to the Hall of New York. Two o'clock in the afternoon. They said, you can't come in here till six. I said, man, I ain't got nowhere to go. Just let me. I'll go upstairs. I won't move security. Let me go upstairs. I asked him, can I go get some chicken? Four hours later, he said, man, I told your ass you can't go nowhere. You know this hall and they don't play. I said, man, I just gotta give me something to eat. He said, if you ain't back in twenty minutes, this door lock. I got back in twenty minutes. Six o'clock came all the comedians on the sixth floor. I meet a dude named Dwayne Johnson, not the Rock then nam Dwayne Johnson. I met a dude named Dale Hughgley. I met another dude named Jamie Fox. Wow this nineteen ninety one, ninety two. We looking at each other. Man, I never heard of them. They had never heard of me. I saw a couple of pictures in comedy club. That was it. I met him. We started going on stage with six comedians at night. All of 'em got booed off. But when they started booing, Jamie Jamie ass starts singing and the one they ass back. I had never seen nothing. I had never seen Apollo ordience stop booing before Jamie Fox starts. I said, Man, who is this dude right here? And then he went back to the jokes and they got his ass. Now I'm last. Now imagine this man, I'm sitting him. Man, I mean I can't. I'm shaken, nervous. I'm scared to death. Yea, ladies and Jeremy Cleveland, ohow, Steve Harvey. I went out there. I had just wrote this joke about Mike Tyson getting in the fight with Mitch Green. Yeah, and Mitch Green was talking and then the eye took over, right, And I had just wrote that joke and I did it for the first time on showtime to pollow them black folks told that place up holly laughing. I got standing ovation walked off. Two weeks later, they said, would you come back again? I went back. Two weeks later, they said, Mark Curry's missing, Would you do us a favor and host Amateur Knight. Steve Harvey went hosted Amateur Knight. I've been on TV every since, man, ever since.
But did you know, like when you told that joke, the Mitch Green joke, and they invited you back, did you know I'm here to stay?
I I I I it was no way I was going back. I was so ready the second time. I wrote a set the second time that I thought was funnier than that. They was just waiting on that Mitch Green joke. Right, I put a plastic shower cap on my head. I was doing this thing about why they always go get the black dude at the fire with the shower cap on to explain whatever. Right, they laughed at that, but they were waiting on that eye joke. Do the high no problem. Then we get that. I moved that eye joke right on up right, I did that eye joke again. They ass fell out again, and that was it, man, I was I was, and then Chuck Sunnon said, hey man, it's between you and a few other people were considering making you the permanent host of Amateur Night. I did that for one year. I was so good. They said, hey man, would you host the entire show? And I said yeah, but I said, under one condition. You had to get rid of all the warm up acts. I'll stay out here on this stage and keep the crowd warm between acts and everything. And they let me do it because Apollo was dangerous place. Man. The first year I had a warm up act. He would go out there and they would get pissed. I would hear them booing and stuff. Now I got to go back out here and resurrect this dead ass crowd, right, So I just start doing it all myself. And I stayed on TV man.
So we're gonna get back to that. Is that kind of why you do the way you do it? Family for you, bro, because I noticed, like I said, I haven't seen a whole lot of behind the scenes, but it's like you in part life lessons on the audience.
That's comes from When I was homeless, I was so distraught. At one point I cut a deal with God. I said, God, if you let me make it. When I get there, i'm'a tell everybody's who it was, and i'm'a tell him about you. So whenever we go to commercial break, I try to give people that come see me. Instead of a laugh, I try to give him something, right, just something. Now I'm old enough man that I don't I I don't done a lot. I try to give him something. And at the end of the show, everybody call it church. I had this moment. Now, at the end of the show, it's just all about the creating what he's done and how you can have a relationship with him and stuff, you know, And like, I ain't no, I ain't no minister. You understand. I'm I'm a I'm a h at best. I'm a entry level I've been practicing entry level Christianity for a long time, right cause I found out I didn't do good at advanced Christianity. Ain't no need of me doing that. I'm r I'll still slap you. You understand you. You can't get up in my face. But for so long I still cuss. I shoot dice, I drank a little kangnac, I smoked cigars, and I gamble. Now I don't think that's all Christian like. But when I'm in Vegas, you know, I'm I'm trying to win my ties. So I'm trying to win my ten percent strong though, right, So I try to shake.
Him loose.
The Steve Harvey Show comes. How did that come about? I was on radio in Chicago. I had finished up this show on ABC called Me and the Boys, Yeah, which got canceled, the highest rated show in the history of ABC to ever get canceled. I finished the season number twenty one out of one hundred and forty four shows. But this dude, Matt Williams I think his name was, who had the TV show Home Improvement with Tim Allen. Yes, he had a deal where if his show the finished in the top ten and he could get the time slot after him, and that was my time slot. So they took me off TV and they gave me a pretty large holding deal. After that, they don't do them deals no more. But they gave me a pretty large holding deal. And I went and bought a house with my holding deal, cause I figured that Hollywood I at least be a homeowner, right, I bought my first house. My first house I bought was in ninety ninety five, my first house was a million dollars and in ninety five for me, that was like crazy. I didn't even go to the bank. I just cut the deal I had. I took my whole holding deal four hundred thousand right and gave it to a developer that was building the house. He finished the house and then I worked it out with him. That's how I bought my first house. And so I was going somewhere with you, but I I w afive. Yeah, I bought bought my show, and then I was doing radio in Chicago and they called me and said, we have a show idea for you, and they flew me out there lay this is my second show, and they said, we want you to be a music teacher at this school, and your best friend is gonna beat This dude named George Winn and George Wynn played on the show Cheers. He was the male man. Know him. At the end of the bar, he said, you guys would be great together. I ain't know him, but I had met this dude in nineteen eighty nine names Sedrict, entertainer who came through this comedy club. I was gigging at one night and I thought said was just the funniest dude I'd ever seen man in my life. And so I said, well, I do the show man, but I want y'all to look at this guy named Sedjia entertainer. He said, we've never heard of him. Okay, but y'all need to talk to this dude. So the dude, George Wynn, said he wanted to do the show, but I didn't know him. Nothing against him. I just saidn't know him. And I'd been on TV once and y'all took my show. So I figured, like this, this next time, i'm'a do it show, We're gonna do it my way, right, And so I said, so they boss said it out and they like said but they said, but he's not as famous as norm. I said, but oh, but let me ask you something. Man who really looked like he be my best friend. I'm finna be roommates. Why would I be roommates with this dude from Cheers? I don't I I wouldn't even do that, right, So they was debating, debating. I said, I'll tell you what hit the deal. I either get, said the entertained i'm'na pass on the show. I was scared when I said that, hm, cause I didn't really have that kind of power yet, right, But that's how strong I felt about it. So they said we'll give him a try for one season. We did a hundred and forty five episodes. That one season turned into syndicated show. Wow, said the entertainer. Man, funniest dude I've ever sat with in my life. Man.
And then you ended up having a situation where you do the Kings of Comedy.
You said, Bernie mac d l.
How did they put that? How did they put that together?
Steve?
How do you guys come together? And says okay?
D L said Steve, Bernie, See, the first year it was just me, Bernie has said okay, And that was rough Man and the guy, this kid came up to his name Walter Latham, twenty six years old, and said, hey, man, I want to create this thing called the Original Kings of Comedy, and I want y'all three to be it, and we only gonna do basketball arenas. And we looked at him and said we're gonna do what? Dog? He said, We're gonna do basketball arenas. I said, don't. We can't sell out no basketball arena. He said, no, I've been looking at pole star all y'all, all three of y'all can sell out five thousand seats by yourself. He said, if I put y'all together, we gonna sell out basketball arenas multiple times. So we used three of us were sitting there talking about it, and we said, man, this dull, crazy man can't do this. Right here she said, He said, I got a sponsor, Royal, Crown Royal. He said, We're gonna guarantee y'all X amount of night. It was like a quarter of a million. And we we said, don't you finna do what don't I looked at said said say, look, let's just get Let's just get the deposit, get on out. If it don't work, let's get the deposit. The kid paid us this deposit for the first night. And that's how we got started. And uh, it was rough man, because it was just the three of us, and the first night we did it was a disaster. Man. It was for me, great for Bernie and said because they went up first, right, said went up first. Now the deal was to do thirty minutes. Said went out there did forty five. Bernie did fifty two. I don't know if you've ever followed Bernie mad before. It ain't what you want. They down there Bernie Didne cussed out everybody in the crowd, and he's hystericause they're stomping. They'll rent about the fall. And we're performing at this arena in Charlotte where the hockey players play. So they had put down the floor on top of the ice, all the black people in there with coats, and then the dude said, we gotta have a forty five minute in a mission. What so you got, said Bernie? Forty five minute in the mission? These black people just sitting down on top of this ice with the little sheet applied wood between and they freeze it. Then here I come. Now the disaster in that was my mama had died in December. Right. Our first performance was December twenty sixth, the day after Christmas, but my mama had died that month. My comedy special had came out December twenty first on HBO. Right, I ain't even watch it. I was in a blur. My mama gone. Man. It was like for two months, man, I thought I was gonna die sy'all. I thought. I said, I ain't gonna make it, man, because I had lost this girl. Man, I was devastated. So my special came out right before the first night. I didn't even wasn't even thinking. So I'm out there when I finally come on stage, they freezing, and now I'm doing the jokes from my special that I forgot had just came out. That all my fans that heard these jokes, and I'm about to just and they hollering out, punchline, do some new shit. You know, black people stay, We heard that, and I'm going, why are they saying this? And I didn't even understand that my special had just came out, right, but I was so devastated. So that night, man, I didn't do well at all. Right, the next morning, this comedian on the radio aks 'em we driving to the airport. Steve Harvey don't deserve to be no king. I don't know how he on the show. He wasn't shit. He on the radio, just eating my ass a lot. And I'm hearing this going to the airport. Now, I just stayed up all night. I ain't had no sleep, cause I ain't I would. I just had a horrible night. Right now, I'm writing cause then I finally realized they was repeating my special. So I'm writing all night. I ain't even go to bed. I stayed up. I sat on the plane writing. I got in Kansas City. I wrote all the way up the show time. I been up all night, man getting old jokes. We working and putting 'em together. Came up with a whole new set next night, Kansas City. Now we argueing. Now me and the Bruhs is arguing, cause I'm saying, Bruhs thirty thirty thirty right ninety minutes, y'all got to help me. Forty eight fifteen minutes in the mission. Here I come. That night I got standing on face. I had redeemed myself. Run it now. And so the first year was rough because I wanted to switch up sometimes. You know, we're all kings.
You wanted to go first, Maybe go first sometimes the hey man, let.
Me sit in the rocking chair, Let me be second. Bernie sat in the rocking chair, and I went man, because you got said one of them up. Bernie in the rocket chair. You closing behind these dudes is rough.
So that's where we had our little that you and Bernie.
But it hands. That was our only odds. That was our only odds because I just man, y'all gotta give me a chance to win two and they ain't never want to spitch switch. So the whole year we did that, and then we bought in Guide Tori and god Tory hosted the show next year. He added, d L. Now we got a problem. We can't have Fox acts because who gonna go last? Now? So the argument was, Steve, you gonna last again? I'm gonna hell no, no, no, man, we all getting the same check. Dog, I'm out here working these said, it's hard to follow now, I gotta follow, DL said, and Bernie the Bernie by herself, mag Mac was just he was of all of us, man, he was that boy could put some pressure on you. So I said, I said, I'll tell you what I do. So then Walter said, well one one of y'all host this show. Ain't nobody want to be the MC? My hell shot straight up, I got it. I'm hosted. Cause that for me was cool. I make it like it's my show. I bring everybody out, lay it out like that. And then they switched over. Whenever we did, Saint Louis said, we clothes. Whenever we did, uh La DL clothes when we did Chicago Bernie Clothes. You know, everybody moved it around, right, and then we settled it. And then the Kings was really borned right at that moment. But we toured for three years, man, right, and nobody but black people heard of us. That wasn't a white person in the crowd for three straight years. Wow, never did a article. We just did black radio. We sold out the MCR Center four times, two weekends in a row, sixty four thousand. We sold out the Georgia Georgia Dome forty four thousand. We sold out the United Center six times. Thought we was walking through this country. Then the dude in the USA today, black dude came did a article on us, and that was it. We was making so much money after that. Man, couldn't mm what happened?
Why?
Why did it end? After the movie? Man, that was probably blessing of a curse. Yeah, The Four of Us, it was the largest comedy movie ever in the history. It was the largest comedy tour in the history. But these white boys came along called blue collar comedy. It was Larry Cable Guy, Jeff Foxworthy, Ron White and Bill Ingvill and they said we gonna show them Kings. Who the real Kings is. So they came out with the blue Collar Comedy tour. They couldn't fuck with us. They wasn't even close. They wasn't even pole star came out. Kings was kicking. They ass we was filling up buildings. Man, And they thought they like, I don't think Fox was in that bill ingvill Has said We're gonna show them what the Kings really looked like, right, And they started selling tickets, but they couldn't compete with us. Man, The Kings of comedy was was we was, and plus we was that other kind of funny, right. We was tag your mouth out funny. We you get up out your chair, your asshole still in the city. You know that type shit was happening, right because when black people laugh, they get up and run to the back of the room. Off take all the popcorn. They were the black people. Yeah, they were letting us have it. Man. And so when it ended the thing that the blue collar comedy to it, there was they stayed together. We split up. You wish you to stay that kept it together, could have kept it together, couple. We tried everything, but you know, dudes felt like they was movie stars. I never saw myself as a movie star. I always yeah, I want.
I was gonna ask you that because you you kind of like stayed in your lane. You see said brand start, Bernie did movies. You kind of stayed. I mean, you had had a couple of roles, but that didn't seem to be That didn't seem to be your passion. That didn't seem to be where you wanted to go.
Never read for a movie. Man, didn't care nothing about it. I was a TV star. I want to be on TV.
So TV and radio was your with your.
Because I could do this, I could do this, I could become household if I stay on T right. You know you got hey Man to be famous in the movie. You know how long it take to be Denzil. Yeah, yeah, that's then. They've been in this a while.
I remember him in Glory because they feel glory in Savannah, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, so that was like a eighty five eighty six.
He was a gangster though, this dude. You believed him. Yeah, yeah, I can only play me. Yeah see, let me just do TV or I just do me. I ain't wait, Harvey, I ain't been no acting class. And to do this here. I'm not fit to care. Finnish city here, and just care. I don't really like you. I can't cry cry with you at we in the scene. I'm finished cry. I don't even know your ass. My father died. Well, okay, I don't know you all your daddy. So me trying to work these tears up. This probably ain't have it. Just let me go be me. So I knew, but Bertie got a lot of rolls, said, got a lot of rolls, and uh, they just wanted to do it man, and that was cool. Then I understood it. So I just new. But the thing that they did, though, well, they went and got so many roles they stopped doing stand up me. I felt so strongly about stand up I never stopped. When I got my TV shows, I steal toured on the weekend, and I never went back to comedy clubs. Once I was in the Marinas, That's where I stayed. So I just stayed in big theaters and arenas. I was going to the Staples Center, No Kill Madison by myself, take two people with me, Radio City Music Hall, I was selling. I stayed right there while the guys was doing the movies. They got stepped away from the They stepped away from them from the craft, you.
Know, But but you walked away at the height of it, Steve, you walked away from the stand up and really hadn't come back.
Would you be willing?
What would it take Steve Harvey to do to do the crypt the crypto dot coms?
What would it take for you to do so?
Five?
What would it take?
How much would it take for Steve Harvey to do what they doing on Netflix? You say, everybody you see Chapel Quake, all those guys had special little Netflix. What would it take for Steve Harvey d to give to give a sixty minutes?
Well, first of all, I have to be done with the TV career, because once I do the special, I'm gonna be done with my job. Man, you cursed up a store, You killing everybody? Steve, No, they gonna they gonna take me off TV. It ain't no where to cancel culture to live. See. The reason I stopped was because I saw, Okay, I got family feud, I got little big shots, I got all this stuff being offered to me. At one point in time, I had seven shows on TV all at once in one season. Wow, I had Funderdome, Little Big Shots, Amazing Grace, Celebrity Family Feud, Family Feud, I had two other shows Showtime that Apollo had came back on Fox. I worked seven days a week. Man, I went through a forty one week period with seven days of taping, and I knew that if I performed as a stand up, that whole TV career that gumble and I was making enough to really solidify myself in television. So in twenty twelve, I had to walk away because I was at the height of everything and I had everything going for me. So now, Man, then I watched Chapelle and Rock and all these boys get sixty million here and all this here, I thought about it. I couldn't. I couldn't dump what I had for that right because I knew the longevity I was gonna make it up. Yeah, anyway, So like today, man, I've been this is for the probably been the first year I've been thinking about it, just doing one mode and I'll probably had to call it something like fucking I'm out or something like that, because I know that's gonna be it. It's gonna be career ending, right, because what I really want to say, I'm not gonna do is special unless I can say what I really want to say. I wanna be like rock and have selective outrage, you know. I wanna be like Chappelle and really say something, but what I really got in my heart to say. If I say it, I'm my career is over.
Why hasn't radio been your most consistent staple?
Because it's theater of the mind. Look, man, when it comes to a dull contemporary radio, ain't nobody done it this long? Ain't nobody been consistently number one. I've been since the year two thousand. I've done twenty three years of black radio, black radio. I got the largest market share today. I got the largest number of people today. Ricky Smiley is my dude. I introduced Ricky Smiley to radio. Yeah, I told him he was the dude. I put Earthquake in radio. I told him he was the dude. You know. D. L. Hugley got him in radio. I told him he was the dude. And they've all watched Bill belling me all of adele give me.
I've had I've had Quake on. I've had said they entertained on. I've had Ricky Smiley on and talked to others, Why were you like this? Everybody's not like you, Steve. Everybody said, well, this is what Steve did. Steve said, let's go down, We're gonna do these things. We're gonna do this. We're gonna do the radio show.
Who is that?
Said? No?
Quate said he had you at his at Atlanta Uptown College. He said, they sold ex Somebody's like, nah, we're not doing that. Give them their money back. We're gonna do radio next morning. We're gonna get up early, we're gonna go get donuts and we're gonna go.
Pass them out. And this is what we're gonna do.
Blah blah blah. Ricky smiling says, Steve Harvey did this. This this for the comedy he got me in radio. Quate said the exact same thing, said said the same thing. Why because everybody's not like you. Everybody keep talking about, well, black, black black, we want to see black succeed and they ain't trying to see black succeed.
Why see, man, When I was a little boy, my mama told me something. Memory was talking about how your mama say something you don't it don't really register in She told me, she said, son one day, God gonna give you a big house up on the hill. When you get up there, you got to tell somebody else how to get on the hill. Didn't mean nothing to me thirteen, But I've always kept that because there's room at the top. Yes, because the top ain't crowded. You know a dude name this record guy Ricky. I can't think of his name. He had a book out. The title of the book was, ain't no traffic on the Extra mile. It ain't. If you go to extra mile, it's free. You can do doughnuts, you can flip your calls. Ain't nobody gonna hit you. It's room at the top. But we have an obligation as brothers to show each other how to get there. See, I ain't got to worry about you taking my market share, because what's for me. It's for me, Okay, see why I'm wearing them. But that's what that's what people get wrong. People think. People think if they blow out your candle, it'll make their candle brighter. Now your candle still a little last flicker, your punk ass, you think because your little bitch ass, then set up here, blew my candlelight. You think your candle fit to be same punk ass flicker. Dog, that's same punk ass flicker you've been having. Because you're trying to blow my candle out. That ain't how at work? You need more candles, man, right, And so my thing has always been to uplift, to teach people the way it's done, show them how to do it. So Ricky Smiley is a competitive of mine technically.
But you put him over so d l a competitor, quite a competitor. So you're not concerned because that a lot of people are like, Okay, I got a big house, but I don't want you in my neighborhood. You get a big house somewhere else, and maybe as long as it's not as big as mine.
No, you don't care. You can put a bigger house right next Dold maunt. What they gotta do with me? You can you gotta make dog, I can't sleep in all these rooms I got. Now, what I care if your house is bigger than my house? What I care? If you got more cars than me? I like my cars.
But but see, excuse me, Steve, how have you been able to handle that? Because you know that people there are a lot of people that smile and say things in your face, and you know they say things behind your back?
Dog, how how do you handle that? Who are you? First of all? Man? Real players? Yeah, them real dudes. They ain't reading blogs and they not blogging. They ain't on they ain't writing c in the comments section. Real bloggers are not shakers in movies, decision makers or power brokers. Give a damn what you say about me? You don't even know me. Most people talking about me don't even know me, right, you know how I know you know me? You got my cell number? Right now? Dog? You ain't got my cell number? Dog? Or what what is your What you say about me don't even matter now if you got my cell number? Like, if Sad was somewhere dogging me, that'll hurt me. Cause this is a dude that we got history. Yes, if Richie Smiley was dogging me, got'll hurt me. If Quake was dogging me, that'll hurt me. If fifty cent dog me, I ain't never done nothing, fifty We ain't got no beat. But I'm just using h him as an neck, right, I wouldn't be as effective, right, I would be gonna like what you talking about me? Fault right? See my mind ain't down there. And then I stay on the wall. If I stay on the wall, even if you throw rocks up, if I stay on the wall, even if your rock hit me, how much steam it got you had to throw up on the wall. But if I come down off the wall to address you, you can bust me dead in the head with the rock. I don't give a damn about haters, man, They don't even know how I'm moving. You know, jay Z got hated when he cut the deal with the NFL. Joe, I haint no jay Z fault. Jay Z making moves. Y'all don't know nothing about y'all sitting over here in your little punk ass life. You ain't got shit going, but you're steady knocking somebody that's out here shaking and moving. How they give a Shannon a podcast? Thing gave him nothing, He took it. He went out and built it. He didn't gonna get permission. He built it. How he got these people? Dog?
But you're worrying about that, Well, you know what my grandma used to say.
Something you say, boy, Sometimes God will put you in place people don't think you belong. And anytime you're somewhere where people don't think you belong. You know, they say, Steve, he don't deserve that. Who are you to tell me what God has made him? What God has made a mistake on me? He don't deserve this. He don't deserve to have Steve on the show. He doesn't deserve to have this. I'm like, broh, you got so much going on.
For you, you don't want me to have a little success. Dog. The reason I'm doing this show, Thog, is cause of how you are, the way you move, what stuff out here you say. I've never heard a dude talking out loud that sound just like me. Dog, you you got that bravado? Fuck how you feel? Yeah? I said it, and you strong with it. That's why I came here. Man. Look, dog, let me tell you something. You the best dress dude on television in all of commentary. You're that.
You heard Steve Harvey say it.
He the best dressed dudel in all the commentary. Now I know who thinks he the best dress I know I got TV. I watched, But Dog, this dude right here be killing the game. I'll be watching you. You straight killing the game. I'll be watching I said that boy shop right there that cold right there. Cold. But then what you say though it skip your knowledge of sport. That's an instant you played the game. But your commentary about these dudes' life. What you try to say to you people, man, so they can learn from you and you and you use that hard southern tough grandma, granddaddy lodging to where they got to go. They might not like it where he old? Yeah, I'm old to you, old to you, I'm sixty six, right the fuck you think that is right? I ain't twenty three.
I've been your age. You ain't been, mind.
Dog. See, I've been where you. I've been where you at already know that trip. You need to pay attention in case you get here, right, just in case, if you got any plan you old hey, man, old is the gold. Yeah. Now if you don't like old, here it is tomorrow, shoot yourself, step your ass out in front of the bus. What fucker jump up? Bill? You stop this old shit right away. Old is the gold, dog, It's the whole goal in life. I'm so glad. Somebody asked me the other day. They said, if you could go back to any age, what age would you go back to? I said, sixty five, cause that the.
Best I ever had.
Do you wish in your twenties and thirties you had some of the knowledge that you've acquired in your sixties.
But you know how much y'all have saved myself. You know the pain I would have been. I could have avoided homelessness. I could have avoided bad decisions I could have I could have avoided so many facts. I could have kept money I lost. I would I wouldn't have been with some of the people I've been with. I wouldn't have did somebod I wouldn't have went some of the places I went. See now I'm together. You know you know this. You don't see me on TMZ, go through TMZ. I'm not finna be on TMZ. You know why because I go home, right, I go home, Dog, I go home. Can't feel me in my house?
Do you think people are actually Because what I've learned since I've been in TV, TV, celebrity is different than than athletes, than athletics, liberty. It's almost like like people are trying to catch you in something, trying to get you in the wrong.
See, they they cheer for you when you coming up, but they can't wait to see you fall. But the ones cheering a lot of them is the one that's trying to bring you down. It's the very same ones. See it's okay when they think they got a shot with you, but then we'll go w But when they see your shot actually worked and now you now, they look at you as over them, and instead of trying to hold you up, they wanna do everything in their power to bring you down. It's it's a funny. Denze Done taught me the best lesson much. We were at Sweet Georgia Brown, Sweet George whatever. It was out in La Uh. This restaurant used to be very popular and it was one of the nights Sam was up for Oscar something and we were standing there at this thing and Denzel said, i'm'a show you the difference between me and you. He said, I'm a movie star, you a TV star. He said, watch this. Just stay with me. People will come up. Oh my god, mister Washington, Oh my god, mister Washington. I watch every movie I go everywhere. Thank you so much. You it's so great something and it just cheating with reverence. He said. You know why, man, he said, because to come see me, you got to get a babysitter, get in your car, stand in line, buy a ticket, stand in another line, get your popcorn and stuff, go to a seat. Wait and I come up on the screen twenty five feet tall.
He say.
Then they leave and they don't see me no more or less. They come to another movie. He said, I'm a movie star. He said, Watch how they come up to you when they know you as soon as they see me. Mister Washington, Oh my god, Stay, what's up? Man?
They know you?
Why stay? Remember that time? And I'm looking at him and he said, you see the difference. He said, The difference is I'm a movie star. You're a TV star. They got to pay to come see me. They invite you to their house every day. He said, no, they they think you are relative. He said, don't nobody have nobody come to their house less they like them. They invite you in their house. Then they're making Samwich is sitting in their drawers watching you. You a relative to them? He said, so, man, when so when you go out in public, you can You got to be different from them than me and Sam. Man, let me tell you so. I was on vacation with Sam one time. Samuel Jackson we used in Portafeino. We'd finished dinner one time, were walking back to go get on this boat. Hey, you're Samuel Jackson. I want to take a picture. He said, what's the magic word? Motherfucker? Not him? And I went Sam, and it froze the white dude. He said, no, I'm taking a picture. He said, I said what's the magic word? Motherfucker? And I'm going like, man, I don't even know the magic word, but I just want to give it to him. I was. I thought it was a ridlissm shit, and so his wife Latanya was gonna have Sam. Sam. No, man, fuck that, what's the magic word? Motherfucking? He done say? That's so harsh. The guy said, please, all right, come on, take god damn picture, Steve. Can I get a picture? Yeah, come on, you ain't gotta give me no magic word? Dog, I'm on TV. We different, Sam, cheat you any because Sam, look you one person with twenty five dollars. He don't count what I'm I got to. I moved different when I'm in public. I got to be a lot more accommodating. I'm loved by kids, old people. I got somebody grandmama, my grandmama. Love you. I gotta take pictures puppies and shit, you know I got I gotta beat that man.
And I think it's amazing, Steve, that you've allowed so many people to eat off your plate. People don't realize how much money is out there, and I mean, think about all the billionaires and all the millionaires, and it's steal money out there plenty.
But we haggle over a few.
Dollars, see, cause you know what it is. We get to a point that we ask God to get us to and then we want to complain about it in safe guard it and act like it's fit to go away. There's a saying, man that I love. It says I can't complain about how much is on my plate when my whole goal was to eat right. So now, dog, you got all the groceries on this platter, my platter full. Dog, I can't let you have some, or I can't show you how to get a platter. They making money, They printing money every day. It's available, man, and you're getting more of it. And I think that's a big part of my success. I think because God will always keep me covered. Because I just honored the principle of I don't mind helping and share it. You definitely don't. Man, I've given people stuff if when the story do get told, I've actually thought about doing a documentary myself when the story does get told about the number of people that I help that I don't even know. Man, the kids me and my wife then sent to school that we don't even know, the scholarships we done passed out, the the things we've done. I'm talking about people. When the hurricane came through and wiped out the Bahamas, man had no idea how many people we went over there and helped what we did. And it's because I understand that principle, and I don't. The Bahamas don't owe me nothing, and the people that get these degrees don't owe me nothing, but God gonna give me back tenfold. Dog. I'm always working, I'm always good, I'm always showing up with some new project. I just keep showing up, man, and that that can only be God. Like you said someone a minute ago, you said that people look at your success and they say he don't deserve that. Well, grace ain't foul. Grace. Grace is God's unmerited favor. It's when God just do you some faith, he do your favor. You can't earn grace, you ever, hear old people say, all I want is a little more grace. You can't buy grace. Bruh. If I could buy grace, I wouldn't have no money in the stock market. I wouldn't have no money at Merrill Lynch, I wouldn't have a quarter nowhere. I would take every dollar I got and give it if I could purchase this one thing called grace. God's unmerited favor because he and He do above and beyond for you for me. I mean, really, dog, while I'm sitting right now, I can't even really explain it though. I ain't that damn funny, you know, really, not really, dog, I'm just God just he keep on blessed man, That's all it is.
Man at your lowest, when you had the situation with the I think in miss universe and you misread maybe they was on the card wrong, and I think you probably read read the prompter what was in the prompter exactly what was in.
And it came down So what so what what what.
Was that moment like, Okay, you read what was in the prompter, clearly it was wrong. Now we got to come back and do have.
A do over.
Shannon hit the crazy part. They hand me the card. Okay, we had bought Miss Universe from Trump. The lady that used to work for Trump was mad because we had decided in rehearsal to change the way we do it. Like all pages they say, and they say, and second runner up is so and so, and then it's the two people standing there. Then they always say and the first runner up is miss so and so, and then that's really anti climactic because now you know who to win, is correct. So they had changed it in rehearsal all week long. We rehearsed, we're not gonna do We're just gonna do the second runner upright, she get out the way, and then next we're gonna announce the winner. The lady that worked for Trump didn't like that, and she put it on the card anyway, but she put it on the corner. It wasn't even up there in the one and two, so she put it in the corner. So when they handed me the card like this, I got it face down. My thumb is over number three anyway, So now when I read the teleprompter, it's got one and two on that, and I read, and the new two thy fifteen Universe. He is, after we'd have done this second runner up, and he said, read the next name on the card, Steve. In my ear, it's miss Columbia and the new why else? What I say, and the new twenty and fifteen miss Universe is it wasn't number one. More name on the card. I said, Miss Columbia. Great job, Steve, going to back. I go in the back. Two minutes in the back, they're out there, celebrate my boy. Come up to me, Terrell. He said, oh gee, he said the wrong name. I said, I ain't said shit wrong. I read the card and I read what was in the teleprompter. He said, no, brud, the ladies she put the name down here. He's supposed to read that one. And then I said, dog, that ain't what we rehearsed. So I've read the fuck it. I ain't stupid. I read the card. I said, alright, i'm'a go back out here and fix it. The dude said, where are you going? I said, i'm'a go out here and fix it. He said, no, we'll fix it tomorrow in the newspaper. Fuck that we live. I'm go fix this shit now, stupidest shit I ever did you I should you should have left it alone. I should have let him fix it in the news. My stupid ass walked right out there and took the full hit. Man. I took it dead in the teeth, like it was all my fault, and it wasn't. Cause if you say in the New two thousand, fifteen minutes Universe and he said, read the next aim on the card, either one of these names or what the next name was, missus Clark Boom? I read it right, boom great. So when I did that, man, the shit went crazy. I didn't know how crazy it was until after the show Man and I went to the press conference and the pre Columbian press was there. This dude was in my ass. Man, how could you do something like that? This has never happened before. I say, hey, man, shit happened. You know. I took I said I read the wrong name, but I really didn't. But I just trying to figure.
You took one for the team, took all of it.
Man to tell the Q card lady her job gone. The director asked, gonna be in trouble because he said, read the next name right? I ain't do none of that. I said, I read the wrong name. So I went to dinner with my wife to nobu that night. I'm feeling a little sick my stomach, but I went to bed. When I woke up the next morning, Oh my god, Oh my god, it was the I ha never seen anything like it. Sky's falling, bruh. I was everywhere. I was the lead story of everything. I've never been ridiculed. A dude man that I really liked on seeing end. I ain't gonna say his name, TJ. Holme. He beat you up pretty good, told my ass man, I'm cool with the bro. When he first came down here Atlanta, man, I took him around him, hanging with him. We cool, I c i'm'na watch you see any that this dude is roasting me. How could he? Oh my god, that's gotta be the most absurd thing. What was he thinking? I sit have gone, damn TJ. But then a couple other people I thought I was cool with, you know, they just was. They was air. Everybody was attacking me. But it was a funny thing because I just wrote on my vision board I was asking God to increase my global brand and persana uh in forty eight hours, sharp my name had been googled four billion times.
Wow.
I was the most Google subject of the year on Google, four billion impressions in forty eight hours. I was the most famous person in the world. God had increased my global brand and persona. I sure ain't appreciate the way.
Yeah, yeah, I appreciate what you did.
You didn't have to do. That was a It was a dark moment that happened on a Saturday. Now a week later it's Christmas. I've been getting beat up, man. I've turned down every interview request. I'm talking about every news outlet. I shut my social media down. I was getting cussed out in Spanish. I learned mold. All I know is I'm a punto all no idea what it was, but every last one of them poont I was that. So I said, let me cut this off. My kids had to cut they social media off. Man. It was. They was throwing bricks over my gate at my house in Atlanta with notes on it at drug cartel was serious, man, we have serious problems. To this day, I have armed security guards at my house twenty four to seven. To this day, they was doing a number on me. So for a week. I was just in the dark, man. And then I just said, man, I ain't gonna sit here and let these people beat me up like this. So on Instagram on Christmas morning, I posted in my backyard, I was smoking a cigar. I said Mary Easter, everybody I remember, and that was my post. And they said he back, Steve got back, and I waited and I came back on my talk show and in February I did no interviews about it until I bought Miss Columbia on my shoulder to apologize to her, cause I had to apologize to her father right cause her father was mortified. Man. And I would have never done that to nobody's daughter.
Man.
So but then after that, man, like my wife and I, we have thirteen villas across the world that have been given to us as gifts from different countries for being the most honest man on TV. We vacation for free all the time. We can go to villas in thirteen countries. You have a villa access to any time you want it. And then I got a T Mobile commercial out of the deal, the super Bowl commercial that year on T Mobile. I made more money than one uh super Bowl commercial. I made in all the damn uh miss Universe put together.
So but now you on a piece of Miss Universe, Miss America, Miss.
Just caf so you Universe, miss team something, miss our America. Cause when they told me to come back next you, I said, I'm not coming back, yeah, because y'all let me eat this bullet by myself. Y'all never said he read the teleprompter. The company never came out and said I'm the director. I told him to say that. Y'all just left me hanging. So I'm not doing this no more. I said, I'm out. I ain't doing it. My lawyer is sitting right over there. Man, he said, I tell you what, he gets owner ship or he don't own it. So then they gave me owner ship. I went right on back to work, smiling hard as hell.
I've reason you lost everything twice.
Yeah, in two thousand and five, you had seventeen hundred dollars left.
This was after Kings of Comedy.
Yeah, you got seventeen hundred dollars after you made what like thirty million dollars on that tour.
No, we made more than that, and you got seventeen hundred dollars to your name.
What dall happened to the money where you where you were you.
It's called a divorce. M I got, I got, I got jumped on man like. But it was even before the divorce, right cause, not gonna say who did it, but they got in cohoots with my uh financial plan huh. And I was writing checks to the government, yeah, for seven years, right, writing tax checks, signing the tax checks, giving them to turn in. They was keeping them, taking the money out the account like. I was paying taxes right and keeping it for theyself. When my accountant passed, a lady went in the office and found a box on the floor, and I had seven years of unpaid taxes and I'm I'm thinking, I'm even. And then my lawyer said to me, hey, man, you ain't paid taxes in seven years. Ooh, so you haven't paid in several years, plus the interest. Then I had saved some millions, but before I split the assets, she took all of that out to pay moved it. See the funny thing. I got divorced in November two thousand five. Oh, but then they went on the rampage to destroy me and act like we was in a divorce fight. We were actually just trying to split some assets. Right. The divorce was over right. It was no fight for nothing, right, it was just let's split the assets. But you took all the assets, right. And I was stuck with this tax bill, right, so I had to pay seven years of back taxes with interest and get current. I was in the world of trouble man. So when I looked up man, I had one thousand, seven hundred dollars. But that's when I went to New York and signed a contract for syndicated radio. Here come God again, rescue with me. That just gave me a little bit of money. I wasn't making what I make now. I make like ten ten MILLI a year off radio back then, you know, cause I just wanted to get in a dose, right, And that kept me at least be able to survive, right. And then that was two thousand five. I reconnected with Marjorie in two thousand five, right after the divorced two thousand and six.
Killed you reconnected, So y'all had dated before.
I dated in the eighties. Really yeah, I dated in the eighties.
I thought they say love is like a McLaren. Once it goes cold, it can't be reheated.
Your mind. Ain't gonna cold red hot, poker hot hot, Tommy hot. I'm talking about Tabasco. So it's just I got in trouble right when we started dating. I became homeless. Wasn't no cell phones. I just had a house number. She had a little baby. I figured what I got to offer this woman. I'm in trouble now, so I just would rove off. We never had an argument or nothing.
You know, Wow, why did you continue to believe in Look everything that you've been like you're telling me you've gone through a divorce and things happened with the taxes, and she took half the money, three quarters of the money. Here I was thought you were selling your money because you made all this money on Kings of Comedy and you got seventeen hundred dollars to your name. Why did you believe in love twice? How do you believe in lee? Could love find love again?
Because of my mom and daddy. My mom and Daddy's married sixty four years. I saw what it looked like, right, I saw what it looked like when it was hard, when it was good. I watched a man honor a woman. I've never seen nobody love nobody like my daddy loved my mama. That boy with that third grade education. My mama taught my daddy how to read and write. I never seen nobody loved nobody like Slick Harvey love iloss Via. He'll kill you about her. And he embedded that in me and my two brothers. Anybody say anything about your mama, get that ass right there right then. If you can't get that ass, come come to this house, get your brothers, but go back and get that ass. She off limits. Ain't no jokes about your mama. Ain't no nothing that that carried me to this day. Man. You can't say nothing about ilas Via Harvey. She off limits. Man. We ain't playing them game. You start that your mama shit up at the school we finish fight. When they would suspering me for fighting, my daddy said, what was you fighting for? I say, he said something about mama, He said okay.
He embedded that, like okay, how he felt about your mother, his wife.
You cared that with your wi.
I just saw it, man. I went, Wow, that's how you do it.
And so you never had that before in all your relationships before, in the marriage, you never had that.
What he had with your mom. You never had that. My first marriage, I got married when I was twenty four. I wasn't the man my daddy was. I was trying to do something he was doing, and I ain't had equipment for it. I ain't know how to problem solved, navigate and negotiate. I didn't know how to shut up in the argument. I was just losing the arguments because I kept him going. I messed that up. The second one, that one right there, dog another drink. I just said, I don't do too but you got me in here. Now, you got me in here? Deep shit, So okay. The second one, obviously, that was the worst one. Normally, after a.
Really really bad dramatic experience, you're like, I'm double this.
It ain't ain't for me.
I was. Let me tell you something. When I got divorced in two thousand and five, I was living in Trump Towers in New York, right on forty eighth and first YEP. I said, after that, this what I'm finna do. I had learned about private jet traveling stuff. By the end, even though I ain't have no money, I had just signed this other contract trying to get back from that. Seventeen hundred. I said, I'm gonna put bus schedules on my walls. I'm gonna have a riveling departure times. Right, that's how many women I'm finna roll up in here in sixty b bus schedules rivaling departure times. I'm finna roll them up in here on a continuous basis. I'm finna live my best life. God said, now you ain't. Oh. I was gonna say, you about to be Nick Canell before Nick Cannon did. Nick is different. I know where the drug store at. So you was like, okay, outside, I don't want to say sorry. Nick. You said okay, I don't know where that came from. Nick, I swear to God it's a Kevin Hart prank. I didn't mean to say that. I don't even know did I just say I know where the drugs store at. You usually said that I don't even know where that came from. Man, See that's that gift that just fo Yeah. But yeah, man, I that was the plan. How did you How did you and Marjin Rican act? God said, no, you not, Now you not. You're not fin to do that. You're finna get yourself together now, don't you done? Lost? Everything twice. Why do it again? You want to do it again, or you won't see what I got for you. You like a cat Steve. The day after my divorce, I went to Veakers. I'm gambling. My bodyguard boomerang on the phone talking to this girl named Sharon in Memphis. He asked about Marjorie. Said, Marjorie doing pretty good now, and I hadn't talked to her in years. Boom tapped me on my shoulder, said, hey, man, I got a phone call. I said, dog, I'm gambling. You know, don't talk nobody. He said, no, dog, you need to take this phone cause I ain't. I thought something's wrong. So I got him from a roulette table. I said hello. She said, boy, what you want? I said, Marjorie? She said yeah, So I just said, so, how your punk ass husband. It's the first first thing I said, cause you punk ass dode to me. I still hold strong to that one. I've never retracted that statement. Okay, I said how your punk ass her husband doing? Because I had heard she had got married. She said, boy, I've been divorced three years. Oh light bull, go on, you start smiling. I'm talking about man like a head, like like a half light BULBN. The hadn't even been in invented then ding I ended up going to Memphis Meta for lunch. She told me about a divorce. I said, I'm divorced too. She said, boy, shut up line because it hadn't went public, right and it just she said, shut up. I know you got married again and I said no. She didn't really believe. It took me two weeks convinc her. We talked on the phone that New Year's Eve. She was in Hawaii with her kids. I'm on the phone with her all night, man, just remembering stuff. Hadn't seen her in Valentine's Day two thousand and six she came to New York. That was it, dog No I and God said, you that arrival and departure signed. You're gonna take that down off the wall. Wow. I showed her to you one time. You didn't get it then, but you and after her, man, I mean, really, you look at my career and my life after her, it's just been a rocket shit.
You credit her for everything that we see. He's Steve Harvey sitting here today. You credit her for that. The man that you became, the way you dressed, the way you talkt the things that you have going on, good, great in your life.
You said that woman over there, because I know what it is now. A lot of dudes won't do that. And I understand that you want to get your shine on you this and you that. But I was that before, and I wouldn't this or that. Right. I was a comedian before. Right, I was a TV star before. So you tell me what difference is. It got to be hurt right because for the first time, man, I had peace at my house. Uh, when you got peace at the crib, dog, you can plug in your battery pack and get rejuvenated to go out here and deal with the rest of this shit. You got to go deal with right, because d hey, man, you know them folks out there. The ain't not finna change racism out there. It's on TV, it's on the internet. It's alive. And well, she would give me the juice and the charge I needed to go back out there. She encouraged me. She told me I was something. When I felt bad, she gave me the But we was at the house, laughing, having a good time. Man, If you look at since two thousands, we got married in two thousand and seven, if you look at from two thousand and seven, I got Family Feud in two thousand and nine. The book came out two thousand and nine, MS Universe. After that, the talk show after that, Little Big Shots, after that, the Judge Show, the radio show got big after that, four books later, the movie came out, Think Like a Man. All this after that? What else is it? I just locked in with this check man, and she gave me a lot of good advice. Man. She made me see things in a different way, and it was her man, And it's okay, man. People don't want to do that now. I know they tired of hearing me saying, but what you want me to say? Should? I ain't got nothing else for you. Should. It wasn't just all me. She gave me the mindset to be me. And that's crazy. Man. It's like there's a dude named Nuri Mohomet. I wish I had my phone. Man, you could hear what this dude said about relationships. It's the coldest thing he said, other than your relationship with God. Who you choose to spend the rest of your life with is the single most important decision you'll ever make, because your other half will either will your other half will be your better half, will make you half of what you could be. She will either inspire you to greatness or reduce you to mediocrity. He and then he went on to talk about He quoted Minister Lewis Faa Khan and then at the end of it he said, so choose wisely. And that was the first time, man, that I'd ever chose wisely. And it was the best thing. Because a woman like an elevator button. Man, they can take you up or down. If you get the right one, you got something. You get the wrong one. But it's like a man to a woman. If you get the right man, you can go somewhere. You get the wrong man, you off. Like I heard you say one time, well I was laughing. Or you said you paid for a divorce. I said, this dude right here was committed.
But see, I want people to say, she was getting the divorce already.
I didn't break the home up because because you know, if people taking it one with it.
Yeah, she was getting a divorce, had the money, right, what's wrong with that? Right, I'm trying to invest in my future. See these dudes killing that's what's wrong with this generation today. These young boys today? What does she bring to the table? The hell you mean? Man? What do your ass bring to the table? You got a woman that can come to the table, that can make another U what else she needs to slide up to the table with? What about your job? What happened to men who are supposed to be responsible? Do you know that it's our job to take care of a woman and some children, to have a family. That's our damn job? But what happens to the when the woman tell you I don't need a man's den? Well? They needed what? Okay, if you don't how that's working, you know how that's working. Who don't need no man? I'm independent? I can do for myself. Yeah, but what do you want to? Yeah? Okay, you can drop a transmission, you can say and blast your house, But hell do you want to if somebody could get out there and drop this transmission for you and saying blast your house, why don't you gonna get your nails done? I'm not trying to reduce a woman to nothing else be all you can be, But damn, who don't need a man? That's a lie? What man don't need a woman? I tell you what I tell you what I tell you what, Try to live without them. Try to live your life without women. This ain't by a lot of damn man, it's some bullshit without women. If it wasn't for what would you? Aristolo Nasi said it best. He said, if women did not exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning. Doc women is everything that it catch me out. They the licked man. But these young boys done forgot it because these women out here they trying to be They've had to be independent because they ain't got the right man. But this system of marriage is still good, this system of a man taking care of a woman. That's really how it's supposed to be. All the rest of us bullshit man, and y'all need to put tricking yourself with this new way of thinking, because there's no way of think. This new way of thinking ain't getting y'all no damn where. I'm sorry. I got in trouble on one time. This group came after me because I said Marjorie belonged to me, and they said, she's not a possession, she's a person, she's a hu, she is she mine? What is you talking about? She belonged to me? But I got news for you, I'm hers. I belonged to her. See you. If you don't like that system, carry your punk ass on, go do something else and let me know how to work out for you. I want to belong to somebody. I want somebody to belong to me. I take care of my wife and my family, because that's you belong to somebody.
In your previous relationship, did you feel like they belonged to you or you belonged to them?
Yeah? I did my first marriage. Yeah, I felt that way. I just didn't have the equipment. I just wasn't the man I needed to be. Did the best I could. I just came up short. You know, I've apologized to her because it really was my fault. I got married too young. How's your relationship with her now? I mean we're cool. We called you, you know, we called you. You know. She gave me three beautiful kids. I got twins. My oldest son sitting over there, you know what I'm saying.
So, how you got three kids? Marjor had kids? How was the blended family? How did that work?
These? Oh that' shit hard that you're gonna get me cool by y'all like, Nah, that shit hard. They wasn't an agreement. They they went bolding. One night in Memphis when me and Marjorie first got together, we bought all the kids together, all seven of them, and all the girls went bowling and came back and decided they didn't want us to get married and said they don't think it's the right thing to do, and they need more time to get to know us. And I'm sitting up here looking at some people that they ain't got shit. I'm sitting y'all ain't got a relationship, a good ass job or career. I'm paying for colleges and shit, I don't know how I'm listening to y'all making some damn decisions. Y'all ain't got one boyfriend that doesn't work thus far. I don't know how to hear you. Finna tell me how to live. My sons was over there, cool with it, Brodery, Jason and Winning. They sitting over there, they cool with everything right there, four girls total just may have totally totally gainsty. Ain't none of them got nobody. Why am I listening? How did you win them over?
I didn't you like I'm doing this, Melliam Marbwie.
We doing this song, I love this girl, this girl best thing for me. Now we gonna work. Now, we're gonna create an atmosphere of love. And everybody's invited into it, right, and everybody want to come into it, can come into it. And it was a point man, where like all of them except the oldest one, my two daughters had graduated from college. Morgan was out of college. So the three girls were living on their own. Everybody else lived in the house, the three boys and the daughter Laurie grew up with four damn brothers, so she was and we could protect at the house with them brothers. Shitd and got out of hand. Now, you know, we can't watch it now because I'd have beens sawed off a bunch of these little you know. But like at the house or we had full control of what was going on. And it was hard, man, because they were trying to evolve and get to know each other. And you know, some of the relationships is really good and some of them is just they cordial, you know, But that's just the way it is, you know, And I love to tell you it was a coon by y'all. Member, we have some great family vacation. We've had some great times. Recently we got great holidays. But you know, I think for the closest, the boys are the closest, you know, right, and then Winting and Laurie is the closest of them all. Winting and Laurier they like they they mud together. They they mixed. But you know, and then the boys they good, you know, the sons, they all they all good.
You have all the you mentioned, You have thirteen villas, You have all these lavish places. Where did Steve Harvey go to relax to just be Margie's husband?
Sixteen hundred acres an hour thirty minutes south of Atlanta. I bought the uh, well, we bought the Chick fil a ranch. Huh sixteen hundred acres? Is that where you be fishing at? I got nine lakes down the shop. You gotta come down there. I come out a beach. You no e old off, see Steve, you can come down there and fish, eat your fish. Ste I know I know that what everybody say from Steve. You I grew up in rural South Georgia. How you say you was, I'll be I'll be double nicoling June. Now I'm two sixes. Steve, I got eleven years on your Steve. I got, Steve, I got. I caught a fish so big to picture, weigh six pounds pass. I said, that's a sharp mess right there. I caught a fish so big to picture away six fronts. Boy, But I got some hogs down there. Let me tell you something. I got a lake for you that I don't let nobody fish. What you got?
What you got trout, crappy catfish.
Trout is in there right now to feeding. But they gonna die as soon as it's seventy degrees, They're gonna be dead. I used to use them for winter fishing. But man, I had a guy come through and turn my lakes out from me. I killed off all the fish I bought it in. Nothing but big female bass out of Florida. Nothing but females, big mouth, So they ain't sitting on the beds nesting and all that. They steady hunting. Yeah, I got. I put four hundred pounds of blue gill in there, and they just walking around just eating it. Oh, I want to I want it, That's what I want to. I want to cut.
That's what I want to pish it, because see if I catch them, when I catch you when they're bedding. See I throw out their bed. They're gonna try to get that lure out the bed.
Yeah. See, but it's a dog fight now because I got one lake in the back. I don't let nobody fish it.
While I was in there.
Hogs, all hogs I loaded back then five pounders in there.
So they probably like seven eight, No, sir, I got hogs. Oh you got you got from double digit?
You got them? Your dog? I got a twelve pound I'll show you a picture. You catch a relief though, right, Yeah, all the time, I got chips in my fish. Okay, I monitor My fish is monitored. That's why I don't know nobody come back there. You I catch you with a string a fish your ass, No, you're gonna get I'll shoot your ass if I catch you any fish that you eat out of there, yeah I will. I got one. I got one pond where you can fish and eat. You know, any trout you catch, you can eat. But they're gonna be gone in a minute because once that water hits seventy they gonna die. But them bass, my hybrid bass for my kids camp that come down there. They can we can cook them. But I don't really got much of that going on. You know, I very rarely do that. You know, man, you gotta come down there.
I'm gonna come down there. So that's so that's where you go. You got this big mansion on the Chattahoochie that's your Is that your prize?
Yeah? I can't. I can't complain about that. That that hoochie that dropped in my man. My girl did that. My girl bought that house when COVID first struck right, And I told the baby, we can't buy no house like that. What are you talking about? I'm I they just sending me home. Family feud shut down in March, right, we take from March to the summer. We our income. Yeah, I said, bab, we can't do nothing like this right now. You know. Marjorie told me, she said, Steve, you don't know how much money you got. You make it. I'll watch it. She said, I can put this whole deal together. I said, Baby, it ain't the right time. She said, if I do it, when you sign the papers, I said, baby, I'm telling you cause I don't. I don't keep it right. That's how much I trust her, though. But you know, she don't do nothing. She don't do nothing without telling me any right, So we well, I know what's there, but I don't really. She did the whole deal herself. Man. She found the house and everything because Tyler built this house.
Man.
Yeah, let me tell you what this dude did when he first built it. He invited me over. I walking up the front steps, I told God, said God, I got to have something like this. How you can't nobody see you in the front or the back? I said, man. And then Tyler put it on sale for way more money, and it it. It sold to this dude that sold his arm and company. And I went out to Beverly Hills and got a house. And then when that was over with, I was going back to live in my house, my other house. I got a nice house. Man. The kids grew up here, and everything was moving back. And on my mama's birthday, I was very depressed. That morning, March twenty seventh, I was crushed.
Man.
We was out of work, going home, and she said I put an offer in on the house. She told me, i'ma she put off here. The real estate agent said, he will never ever sign for that much. He'll never take that amount. It's impossible. It's Harvey. He's wasting your time. She's She wrote him a long letter too. She said, this is not a negotiation. I am offering you this. My husband loves the house. He's been that we'll buy a sight unseen if you don't want this amount, it's okay. I'm not trying to insult you. On my mama's birthday, he called and said, I take the off. That's how I got the house.
Wow.
That girl and the house she really wanted was around the corner. It was on seventeen acres too, and I was gonna save my money and get her that house. She said, no, Steve, you go to work every day. I don't turn no corners. She said, well, I'm gonna get the one you want it. I said, babe, but you like the other one better. She said, we're gonna get the house you want, and she did it.
I'm gonna get you out of here.
On this.
Being from Cleveland, obviously you're a Cleveland sports fan. What's your favorite sport? What's Steve Harvey's favorite sport to watch?
Football? Football? Hell, there ain't even no question. They play hard from week one, they do they answer is in at week one? Yeah, ain't no low manager, ain't no sooner. Preseason over with hike. It's on and crack and here they come. Yeah. See basketball, you gotta wait till the playoffs. Right, Baseball, you gotta way to the player. I can't stand watching baseball. I'd rather be just. I'd rather watch some ants build a new hill. I'm a Cleveland Brown, die hard fan man. I've been dying with them boys forever. I'm a huge Deshaun Watson fan. I have no problem with Deshaun Washington. I do have one suggestion, I s My only suggestion is, ain't no problem with getting massage. It's just you have got to stop turning over. Just stay face down, Just stay face down. All be good. Oh that does do not turn over.
We're gonna rapple that, ladies and gentlemen, guys, ben put some hand together for Steve Harvey.
Yeah, all my life, grinding all my life, sacrifice, hustle, one slice got the all my life.
I'll be grinding all my life all my.
Life, been running all my life, sacrifice that will pay the price. One slice got to brow the dice, that's wall all my life.
I've been running all my life. M hm