D.L. Hughley is accused by critics of being paid for his speech supporting Vice President Kamala Harris at the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 22.
The four-day event saw a number of elected officials and celebrities publicly declare their backing of the presidential candidate. The comic has been outspoken in his decision to rally behind the former California attorney general since July, when President Joe Biden endorsed her as his successor in the 2024 presidential race against Donald Trump.
Hughley, however, has not always been supportive of the country’s first female vice president.
Like many others, he believed widespread misinformation about Harris’ crime policies she enacted while serving as California’s head prosecutor. He disclosed that he was wrong for doing so, too. “As president, she will give each and every one of us a fair shot in life. But I have to admit, I didn’t always believe that,” began Hughley in his speech.
“I mean, if you told 15-year-old me that I would be on stage supporting a prosecutor and a teacher, there’s no way that I would’ve believed you. But because of that, I made assumptions about Kamala’s record, and I often repeated them to a lot of people,” he added.
Among his reasons for distrusting Harris’ stance on cracking down on crime is that he believed she sent 1,500 Black men to jail for marijuana-related offenses during her term as attorney general. The often quoted statistic has been heavily circulated since 2020, when it gained traction Facebook.
The Associated Press found that the post is a distortion of a claim made by an opponent during a 2019 Democratic presidential debate, when Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard said, “Sen. Harris says she’s proud of her record as a prosecutor and that she’ll be a prosecutor president. But I’m deeply concerned about this record. She put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana.”
The Facebook claim has been framed as a caution to Black voters that Harris does not have the community’s best interest in mind as an elected official. Before the crowd of thousands and millions more who watched the DNC live broadcast, Hughley admitted he was wrong.
“One day, Kamala invited me to her house, she put her hand on my shoulder, and she asked me to do some research. Something I had never done. Something I know a lot of people had never done before,” “The Original Kings of Comedy” standup said.
Hughley added, “Imagine attacking someone’s character without a single Google search. So I did what I should have done in the first place. I learned that she had done for us exactly what she promised to do. I believe that your apology should be as loud as accusations, and I’m here apologizing in front of the whole d–n world. I was wrong, and I’m so very glad I was wrong because, Kamala, you give me hope for the future.”
Online, a conservative troll said his switch-up was a paid tactic by the Democratic Party to secure Black votes. “How much they pay you @RealDLHughley bet it’s 1/2 what @SteveHarveyFM got,” one said. Another person tweeted, “He got more than $10,000 too.”
Figures such as the $10,000 and mention of Steve Harvey come days after the actor addressed claims that he was paid to promote Harris on his syndicated radio show. Though Harvey never publicly endorsed Trump, the entertainer took a digital bashing for meeting with the disgraced ex-president in 2017 shortly before he took office.
This past June, he again faced backlash for his political alignments when he led a discussion with Harris at the 100 Black Men of America conference. He told the audience, “Before y’all start calling my radio show and DMing me, talking about why you ain’t asked no hard-hitting questions — that ain’t what this is.” He further admitted the chat was “an alley-oop” to highlight what the Biden-Harris administration was doing for Black people.
When the self-proclaimed “Prince of Pan-Africanism” Dr. Umar Johnson accused Harvey of accepting bribes to promote the Democratic agenda, the “Family Feud” host said those claims were untrue. Umar claimed Democrats offered him $10,000 to engage with the campaign, but he turned them down.
Steve Harvey responds to Dr. Umar, who claims he and Rickey Smiley are getting paid to endorse Kamala Harris's presidential campaign.
— The Art Of Dialogue (@ArtOfDialogue_) August 20, 2024
(🎥 The Steve Harvey Morning Show) pic.twitter.com/n6mW4pBMHq
“I’m doing this absolutely free of charge because I want this county to be in her hands as opposed to Donald Trump’s hands,” said Harvey as he addressed Umar’s claims.
He continued, “That’s why I do it. Now, me and Rickey Smiley happen to be on the same page. We Ques [Omega Psi Phi fraternity] now, and so is D.L. Hughley. And Ques kind of run the airwaves for Black radio. … We also understand what’s at stake here. So, no, I haven’t received a single dollar for anybody to do what I do.”
Hughley also addressed the accusations he his support was bought in an Aug. 23 Instagram post. He wrote, “I wasn’t ‘USED’ for anything, nor do I ever ‘allow’ myself to be. I do and don’t do what I want.”
