Steve Harvey said he wants his staffers to leave him alone — and he meant it.
via NYDN
The comedian doubled down on the no-nonsense approach he decided to employ with the staff members of his daytime talk show, explaining that some colleagues began to take advantage of his previously inviting nature after a while.
“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,” he told Entertainment Tonight. “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.”
Harvey’s straight-forward memo to his co-workers was distributed ahead of the fifth season of his former program, “Steve Harvey,” according to Variety.
The message included rules like “do not come to my dressing room unless invited” and “I promise you I will not entertain you in the hallway, and do not attempt to walk with me.”
“I want all the ambushing to stop now. That includes TV staff,” he included in another line. “You must schedule an appointment.”
The note began circulating the internet Wednesday after Robert Feder published it on his Chicago media blog. Harvey suggests he didn’t expect it to be such a big deal.
“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,” he told ET. “I don’t apologize about the letter, but it’s kind of crazy what people who took this thing and ran, man.”
The “Family Feud” host added that he probably should’ve handled things differently — but doesn’t seem to have any regrets.
“Look man, I’m in my makeup chair, they walk in the room,” he told the entertainment outlet. “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.'”
We can’t say we disagree with the idea — just the delivery of the message seemed abrasive.
