Steve Harvey is unapologetic about the leaked memo saying employees “ambushed” him in the hallways and his dressing room, resulting in him creating an appointment-only policy.
The email stirred a huge conversation on social media, with some agreeing with the request and others feeling it was rude. Harvey explained he needed to set boundaries to have some time for himself.
“I was trying to find ways that I could just get more me time, time for me,” he tells Entertainment Tonight Thursday, May 11. “I’m a 60-year-old man and I could not find a way to walk from the stage to my dressing room to sit in my makeup chair, to walk from my dressing room to the stage or to just sit and have lunch without somebody just walking in.”
Harvey’s memo outlined the various ways in which he would not allow conversations to go on between him and his staff, including “popping in” his dressing room and waiting in the hallway. The talk show host, who was wrapping up the final day of production on “Steve Harvey” in Chicago before heading to Los Angeles for a new talk show called “Steve,” said security would prohibit anyone from waiting outside his door to speak with him.
“I’ve always had a policy where you can come and talk to me,” Harvey said to ET. “So many people are great around here, but some of them just started taking advantage of it.”
The comedian said he would get approached in the hallway by staffers with friends who wanted signatures and Harvey decided to take a step back.
“I just said, ‘Wait a minute.’ And in hindsight, I probably should’ve handled it a little bit differently.”
With the talk show moving to L.A., reports claimed not all employees would be making the transition. Harvey addressed how the move has impacted some of his staffers, giving a clue on how the memo got out.
“A couple of people are not happy with that,” he says. “They’re disgruntled. So, why would you wait until the end of the season to report something that I gave to you back in August? And I was simply asking everybody to honor and respect that.
“If you come out your house, you don’t want anybody on your porch waiting on you,” he says. “You walk to your car, you don’t want people bothering you on your way to your car. … I just didn’t want to be in this prison anymore where I had to be in this little room, scared to go out and take a breath of fresh air without somebody approaching me, so I wrote the letter.
“I don’t apologize about the letter, but it’s kind of crazy what people who took this thing and ran.”
