Since the introduction of social media, many people have found words from the past to come back to haunt them, and the people who find themselves victims to this the most are celebrities. Social media allows fans to revisit what celebrities have said or done in the past and punish them for it in the future. Steve Harvey is the latest celebrity whose past statements are being examined.
On Sunday, April 25, a fan reposted a snippet from a 2010 interview Harvey did on CNN’s “Face to Face with Fredricka” where he was promoting his relationship book “Straight Talk No Chaser.” Harvey discusses a topic that’s been discussed several times: that men and women can’t be friends. He starts by saying that all of his friends are male and that he doesn’t have female friends because he’s “incapable of that.” When journalist Fredricka Whitfield asked why he later said “Let’s get rid of this myth” while laughing.
To explain his point he told Whitfield that she was an attractive woman and if a guy said he was only her friend then “that’s not true.” He said, “He’s your friend only because you have made it absolutely clear that nothing else is happening except this friendship we have. We remain your friends in hopes that one day there’ll be a crack in the door, a chink in the armor. And trust and believe that guy that you think is just your buddy, he will slide in that crack the moment he gets the opportunity.” His reasoning for why men do this is “cause we’re guys” and he believes “99.9 percent of us think that way.”
Many people chimed in on Steve’s decades’-old take on friendships between men and women and, of course, there were differing opinions.
One guy who disagreed with the “Family Feud” host said, “I hate how he presents men as these primitive beings who are incapable of intelligent thought or platonic relationships with the opposite gender.” Someone else said, “this is a weird take, if you’re incapable of being friends with women platonically you need some character development.”
Others understood Harvey’s expressions. One lady commented, “All I can say is I never had a man friend who didn’t like me and it’s really sad cus I really just be wanting to be friends that’s all.” Another person wrote, “Why y’all mad he knows himself and understands himself? Why tf people gotta conform?”
Harvey has yet to respond to the reactions of the viral interview.
