Uncomfortable with the way Steve Harvey spoke with (well really, spoke over) Mo’Nique on his talk show? He is too. The Steve Harvey Show host wishes he had chosen his words better during their on-air conversation, Harvey recently admitted.
“I’ve got to slow down when I’m talking,” Harvey said during an interview with People. “I can’t get into heated discussions, and I’ve got to just guard my words more carefully.”The two longtime friends had a spirited discussion where he berated her for calling out Oprah Winfrey, Lee Daniels and Tyler Perry. He also recalled the time when Mo’Nique was labeled “difficult,” when she refused to campaign during the Academy Awards season without compensation for her Oscar-winning performance in Precious.
Harvey also regrets that he’s anything but a man of integrity, a fact that many are questioning after their discussion.
“I take full responsibility for it, it came out my mouth, so I can’t say that I didn’t say it,” Harvey said. “But to people that really know me, I have lived my whole life as a man of integrity. So when I was referring to ‘integrity’ in that interview, I was talking about the method in which things were being done, and that is all it was.”
Along with namedropping Winfrey, Perry, and Daniels, Mo’Nique also attempted to ignite a boycott of Netflix after getting a low-ball offer for a comedy special by posting a video to social media asking people to support her cause.
“I never questioned anybody’s principles or anybody’s causes,” Harvey asserted. “I was merely questioning, for the 50-minute interview, the method that she chose going about doing it — and I regret that looking back at it now, because that was a bad choice of words.”
Harvey added hat he did not intend to encourage Mo’Nique and her husband, Sidney Hicks, who also serves as her manager, to act against their consciences.
“Because in my heart, that is not what I have asked anyone to do. I have lived my whole life as a man of integrity, and I will stand on that, but I was really just talking about the method that they went about doing what they did, and that was it,” he explained.
Harvey has publicly committed to helping Mo’Nique mend some of her damaged Hollywood relationships. This comes after Mo’Nique said on the show that she felt “betrayed” by her celebrity friends choosing not to come to her aid publicly.
No matter what happens is Hollywood, Mo’Nique remains a fan favorite. She’s currently performing in a Las Vegas residency at the SLS Hostel and Casino.