All About Laughs
Steve Harvey has build an empire on his advice. The former stand-up comic and actor has shifted his brand the last decade of his career to focus exclusively on his roles as a TV show host and motivational speaker. His advice has made him a New York Times best selling author and launched a successful film franchise off the back of Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man. Steve has caught some flack over the years for some of his more colorful opinions, a few of which have recently come back to haunt him.
Last week we reported on resurfaced comments made by Harvey that raised a few eyebrows. The Family Feud host is not the first celebrity to find older content being resurrected. With the rise of cancel culture people are constantly digging through stars archives to find problematic content or comments from the past. Harvey, a former stand-up comic, has said a few things during his stand ups that have not aged well. In particular, a clip taken from his legendary performance on the Original Kings of Comedy tour has been singled out where he speaks on actor Michael Clarke Duncan’s role in the 2001 adaptation of Planet Of The Apes.
Duncan had been a guest on Harvey’s radio show to promote the film and he revealed off-air that he had been paid a whopping $10 million after a caller phoned in to criticize the actor saying, “I don’t think black people should put themselves out there like that.”
Harvey responded, “For $4 million I’ll be all the [MF’ing] monkey you can stand. Black people would be so embarrassed by my [MFing] performance, you’d be sitting up there just… ‘look at this big-lipped, son of a b***h,’” he says jokingly about himself. “You ain’t got to act like that much of a m*****f***** monkey!”
While that one may have rubbed some people the wrong way, today it happened again for Harvey. A 2010 interview resurfaced where he explains why he feels men and women cannot be platonic friends.
In the clip, Harvey states, “All my friends are men. I don’t have female friends. I don’t. I’m incapable of that.” When asked if it was because he’s married, Steve explained, “Well, I have a wife and I don’t really have female friends because, look, okay – okay, let me tell you this. Let’s get rid of the myths. You’re an attractive woman. There’s some guy somewhere saying, yes, we’re friends. No, that’s not true. He’s your friend only because you have made it absolutely clear that nothing else is happening except this friendship we have.”
Say “I only see women as sexual objects” without saying it pic.twitter.com/vztXiusXpr
— Bilal Capone (@EliSeeney) April 26, 2021
Harvey then added, “We remain your friends in hopes that one day there will be a crack in the door, a chink in the armor. Trust and believe: that guy you think is just your buddy, he will slide in that crack the moment he gets the opportunity because we’re guys.”
Chris Rock is also trending after a clip of him expressing similar thoughts in a stand up also went viral.
I see Steve Harvey is trending because of comments he made about men being friends with women a few years back. Well, this certainly isn’t a groundbreaking idea.
— Da X Man (@Da_X_Mannn) April 27, 2021
What makes comedy great is the element of truth in it. The great Chris Rock said it best: 😇pic.twitter.com/EK6qa5g4d1
