by As Steve Harvey wraps up the fifth season of his syndicated daytime talk show, he’s moving not only to a new production company but also a new location, taking his show from Chicago to Los Angeles.
So now one of his Chicago staffers has leaked a memo Harvey sent to all of them at the beginning of the fifth season last August, as circulated May 10 by Robert Feder.
Here it is:
Harvey spoke on the phone to Entertainment Tonight to explain himself.
To wit:
“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. I’ve always had a policy where, you know, you can come and talk to me — so many people are great around here, but some of them just started taking advantage of it.”
“Look man, I’m in my makeup chair, they walk in the room. I’m having lunch, they walk in, they don’t knock. I’m in the hallway, I’m getting ambushed by people with friends that come to the show and having me sign this and do this. I just said, ‘Wait a minute.’ And in hindsight, I probably should’ve handled it a little bit differently.”
Harvey added: “If you come out your house, you don’t want anybody on your porch waiting on you. You walk to your car, you don’t want people bothering you on your way to your car. Everybody wants the freedom to be able to move around.”
“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, man. I appreciate you asking me.”
