Steve Harvey told a story about never giving up in a video that he posted to Instagram on Monday.
The post is a throwback clip from his talk show “Steve,” which went off the air earlier this year. And in it he talked about getting his first TV job, which was a performance at the Apollo Theater.
Related: Check Out Some of Steve and Marjorie Harvey’s Epic Vacations
Harvey also mentioned his fellow comedian Mark Curry‘ in the story, days after the “Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper” star accused him of stealing his jokes.
Cooper sat down on “The Mike & Donny Show” in an interview that was published on Dec. 12 and said Harvey used one of his comedy routines on “Steve.”
“Steve stole my material on his show, so I had a beef on that,” Curry alleged. “When he was on his bullsh– talk show that he had, he did all of my Halloween material one Halloween. And my thing was, you didn’t have to do that, homeboy. Motherf—er, you made enough money, b-tch ass.”
In Harvey’s story, the 62-year-old said in the early 1990s he was about to quit his dream of being on television. And one day after being down to his last $35, he cried out to God. Harvey then said a voice told him that “If you get up, I’m going to take you to places you ain’t never been.”
From there, still wanting to quit his dream, Harvey checked the messages on his answering machine and it turned out to be an offer to perform comedy at the Apollo Theater. And it would be televised too.
But with only $35 in his pocket, he couldn’t afford to get from where he was in Florida to New York City, where the gig was. That’s when he learned of another big opportunity after he heard a second message on the machine.
It was from a man who owned a place called the Comedy Caravan, and he offered Harvey $150 to perform. And the comedian did so well that he was asked to go on the following night, where he’d make another $150.
After the second night, Harvey had enough money to buy a plane ticket to New York and play the Apollo gig. And it was there that he met D.L. Hughley, Jamie Foxx and Dwayne Johnson, who all got booed when they performed their comedy sets. But Harvey got a standing ovation, which led to another big opportunity.
“A couple of weeks later, Sinbad was the host of the show (‘It’s Showtime at the Apollo’) and he got this job on ‘A Different World,’ and so he quit,” Harvey explained. “And so Mark Curry became the host, and Mark Curry got ‘Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper’ and he quit. And they came to me and said ‘Would you come back to New York and host ‘Amateur Night’ for us to just try you out?'”
Harvey accepted the offer and hosted “It’s Showtime at the Apollo” for eight years.
“Everybody has a turn-back moment,” he said after finishing the story. “You have a moment where you can go forward or you can give up. … [But] if you give up, the guarantee is it will never happen. … The only way the possibility remains that it can happen is if you never give up, no matter what.”
“I enjoyed your motivation speech it brought tears to my eyes,” someone wrote in the comments.
“Loved this and needed this !!!” wrote someone else.
In regards to what Curry said, Harvey hasn’t responded yet. At least not publicly.
