From Sleeping In His Car To Building A Media Empire: Steve Harvey’s Story 🤯

I had to learn something in adversity. This is what I learned. I often ask people, I said, "How many of you all have ever had a bad day?" An audience raised a head. "How many of y'all have had days where you felt like you wasn't gonna make it?" And everybody raised their head. "How many of y'all have had days where you thought you, you just didn't know what you was gonna do?" Everybody raises their hand. I said, "Now, let me tell you something about yourself. Your track record for surviving hard days, days you wasn't gonna make it, thought you weren't gonna make it, insurmountable days, your track record for surviving those days is 100%." Every bad day you've ever had, you survived it. Exactly. You got a 100% track record. Everybody in here, everybody watching, got a 100% track record of surviving funky ass days.

My graduates from my school, being Forbes, backdrop, backdrop, backdrop. [Music] [Applause] All right guys, welcome back. EYL, this is going to be a legendary situation. It feels legendary already. It's already a legendary pre-conversation that we actually have for like a half an hour. So if you know us, you know that, you know, we grew up in the culture, yeah, from music, sports, of course, entertainment. 1000%. Um, so one of the pillars of our culture who's actually become an icon, Steve Harvey. So Steve Harvey needs no introduction. But I was telling him the story, my, I'm not sure if that's my first introduction, but like, when it really became like, really, really big for me was The Kings of Comedy. Yeah. And it's crazy that that happened over 25 years ago now. I'll say, when you saw it, don't say you were the teenager. I was younger than teenagers. Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna go further back. I'm gonna go further back. I remember having to wait up, uh, at 12 AM to watch Showtime at the Apollo. Yeah. Over to Apollo. That was before, that was before around scene. Same time, right? Yeah. Like, you have to wait up to that Apollo. That was legendary. Yeah. Um, but just to see The Kings of Comedy in the movie theater and to see his cultural impact. Like, I never forget, like, I had never seen, because I'm too young for like, *Raw* or, you know, all that old. So crazy. Yeah. That was before my time. So that's the first time I actually saw, like, a comedy show in a movie theater and packed, and people were talking about it, and people stealing the jokes and making it their own jokes. Like, it just became like a cultural phenomenon. I think that might be my first time crying in the theater. Why'd you cry? Because I was just laughing so hard. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Once I said, when B-Mac got up there, it was just like, this is crazy. And then D.L. and Cedric, it was, it was crazy. It was great. I couldn't wait for the DVD to come out to keep watching it. That's how it was. DVD is what we used to put in inside of a driveway. Let's forget it. You gotta tell people. But, you know, it's crazy just to see the evolution. I thought I told them it was just inspiring for me. Like, we were actually at his estate right now. And to see the evolution of, you know, somebody that was doing comedy and then was on TV, radio, and now it's just media mogul and has grown a whole empire. Like, you know, it's inspiring. Actually, because we actually got to see it firsthand. We actually got to, like, witness the growth step by step by step by step. So this is going to be a dope conversation because I feel like a lot of times people might, they might see the surface, like they see, you know, the celebrity, but they don't actually see what goes behind that and how he's actually transitioning the whole world of Hollywood. With the conversation that we just had, we're gonna have that conversation as well, reframing everything and ownership and all of this stuff, global vision. So this is gonna be extremely, extremely high-level conversation, dope conversation. So it's dope because it's like, we saw the entertainment, but most people forget that there's a business in it. And so, like, to head here, what's gonna happen today, man? It's gonna be one of those situations that they're gonna remember forever. Yeah. Thank you for joining us, brother. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you for having us. Thank you, man. You know, one of the things, like, you were talking because what I learned very quickly, show business is actually two separate words. It's not one continuous thing. So you can have the best show in the world, but if you don't have the business, then how would people book you? How would people pay the ticket price to see you? Why would people come? You know, if you don't have the business. So you can have the best show in the world, and if you don't take care of business, it won't work. You can have the best business acumen in the world, but if you ain't got no great show, or you might trick them into paying you this money, and you might. But once they get there and you don't have a show that lives up to the ticket price, you don't have a repeat customer. So I always had to learn that show business was two separate words, and I had to ask. And at first, it only starts off as being a great showman because you got to learn the business. And over the years, I started focusing on the business, and that was one of the biggest, uh, causes for my success because I always understood that even with a promoter that booked me or comedy club owner that hired me, I didn't go on that just to be hired. I went in there as his partner. I wanted to sell his place out so after he paid me, he was successful, so he would want me back over and over and over again. And I kept that relationship, whether it was a comedy club owner or a promoter or a TV show. That was my philosophy. So I want to get into this. I understand you have five core principles when it comes to considering business. Dreaming big. Dream big. Use your imagination. Show gratitude. Overcome fear. And have faith. Yeah, man. Can we go over each one? Dream big. Let's start with that one. Everything starts with the dream. Nothing launches without the dream. That, that comes from your childhood, from anything. It's the dream. It's the core basis of success. See, the thing with me, man, is I don't really focus on the technical aspects of business because I'm not the technical guy. I focus on the mental aspect of business. I focus on the part that goes on in here because if you fix what goes on in here, you got a shot. Now, your technical ain't nothing if you ain't got it set up. So the, the dream is the core of everything. That dream, man, this is biblical. You know, "Man without a dream or vision shall perish." That's about you. Education ain't even in the Bible. I never mind, never read nothing about Harvard, Emory. I ain't never heard no Ivy League scriptures. I've never. All it talks about is that dream. So that's the core. Imagination. Yeah. Now, that's critical because see, what people don't understand is, man, this thing that you imagine is, is, is a peak. Albert Einstein had a quote. He said, "Imagination is everything. It's the preview to life's coming attractions." Oh, man. When I heard that, that tripped me out because here's Albert Einstein setting it out that imagination is everything. It's to preview the life coming attraction. So everything that's in your imagination is God showing you a preview of a coming attraction that he has for you. See, so you can't, don't let nobody play your imagination off. Don't let nobody twist you about what's in your imagination. Don't let, oh, how you see that? They ain't supposed to see it. See, everybody's not gonna see your imagination. You can quit telling it to him because if God wanted them to see it, he'd put it in their imagination. But he put it in yours. So imagination is as critical as the dream because the imagination is just God showing you a preview of what he has. It's like when you go to a movie and you get your popcorn and you sit down before the movie start, what did they show you? Previews. They show you previews of what a coming attraction. Have you ever seen a preview and then the movie ain't come out? Now, bro, once you see the preview, it's going to be a movie. You believe that? And that's how, that's how imagination works in your life. Let me ask the third one. It is very interesting to me. Show gratitude. See, gratitude is one of the most overlooked and key principles to your success. If your goal is to be a millionaire and you start out making $20,000 a year, and then God gets you to $50, but you mad because you ain't a millionaire. But hold up, man. Do you not remember that just a minute ago, you wouldn't didn't have a $20? So you got to show gratitude for the $50. Then somehow, by the grace of God, you get to $150. It's people making $150 who used to be dead broke, mad because they not a millionaire. Hold up, partner. Do you remember when you was just making the $50? Now you don't triple that. And you got to understand that there's joy in the journey. So if you don't show the proper amount of gratitude, you're never gonna be happy. You're never gonna be content. And after a while, man, God gonna get tired of you. It's like, if you, somebody come over your house and borrow a cup of sugar every day, every day somebody come to your house, they ask you for a cup of sugar, and you give it to them, and they walk away and don't ever say thank you. How many times can this cat come to your house and get this sugar without saying thank you to you? Before you, as a human being, go, "Yo, yo, yo, my man, you come here every day and I give you this cup of sugar, you ain't saying thank you one time. Don't come by here no more." But through God's grace and mercy, he allows us to keep coming back. But suppose you were grateful, though. Maybe one time you go to God and ask for another $150, and he'll give you $500 'cause you didn't show gratitude. Maybe sometimes when the guy that kept coming by your house asking for the cup of sugar, if he would show gratitude, maybe you go, "Hey, man, he got five-pound sack of sugar that way you ain't gotta come back tomorrow." But if you never show the gratitude, you never become the recipient of the grace. And the grace is to what you need on top of that, that helps you get to the next level and take your plate. My wife asked me the other day because I just turned 65, right? I was talking to my wife, and I said, "Baby, I was just kind of, kind of got a little throwed off, a little bit, because even I'm human, you know, I got a little throwed off. Baby, I just turned 65 and I really was wanting a little bit more to be popped off by now." She said, "Wait, my hole upstairs. Wait. Let me ask you something. When you was 30, where did you see yourself at 65?" I said, "Well, I ain't see this." She said, "Exactly. She said, "So you can want all you want, but you need to go outside and just drive around and go get in some of your cars and see how you fly and just take a look around, and I think you'd be all right." And I went on sit down. Go sit down. What about overcoming fear? Well, fear. Fear is the number one cause of people not being successful because the average person freezes themselves with fear and they never try. You know, it's like people are afraid to fail. Dog, that's the process. I don't care who you talk to. I've watched y'all's interviews, man. Y'all can talk to some bad people. I don't care who you. I was listening to Rick Ross, man. That boy Cole. You know, you sit up and listen to Ross, man, and you go, "This is a hood dude." Real simple. If you don't understand Ross, because you don't want to, he's just a basic dude. But if you are afraid, fear, it freezes you. And people are afraid to fail. Failure is a part of the process. You cannot get where you going without failing, partner. You don't learn nothing winning. Michael Jordan took 900-some game-winning shots. He only made 140-some of them. Yeah. They don't write about the 700-some misses, but you see he on Wheaties boxes 'cause he made 146. He made that. Nobody gives a damn that he has failed three quarters of the time. He was willing to take that game when he shot and hoping to make it. Now he made 146. So he got a lot of rings on his fingers because he lost to fear of failure. And failure, man, is part of the process. So you got to lose the fear of failing, man. It's just a part of it. It's the deal. The last, the last one. Having faith. Well, that's the ultimate. See, Mark, I was raised cool, man, because my father didn't go to church ever. My father was a hoodlum. He was a hard-working man, but my father was a hoodlum. He did. He had some illegal activities with Don King in Cleveland. When I see Don King, man, we just hugged. Don King went to jail for manslaughter. My father knew this dude. My father ran numbers with Don King in Cleveland because in the wintertime, he worked construction, so he wasn't working. So he was a number runner in Cleveland. So my first job when I was 10 years old was a paper route. And my job was not to just deliver the papers, but I had to go to everybody's house off my bike and remember where they put their numbers. Some people put their numbers up under the fender of their car. Some people would tape it under their stairway, under their steps. Rats and stuff on the night get up there and get the paper. Some people to put it behind their mailbox. Some people hand it to you every morning. And my father was a hoodlum. My mother was saved. She was a Christian. My mother took it to church. That combination of his being doing whatever he had to do to survive for his family, measured with my mother's teaching us about God, and prayer, and faith, and scriptures, has been the total cornerstone of who I am. My faith. See, faith is the belief in things that you cannot see. Without that, how you make it? Because I'm finna ask God for something that I don't see, know how, no way I can get it, but I got the faith that one day I have it. That's cold, man. That's a cold piece to lock into your mind. And people that don't have faith, that don't have a spiritual background, I feel sorry for a man because it's gonna be way harder. Way harder. Because too much gonna happen to you that's gonna require some God. Now, you can think it, don't, I don't really believe in God. Okay. Yeah. You ain't got. He's still there. You know, people all the time, I don't believe in heaven. Yeah, that's cool. Well, it's still gonna be one. One dude told me, he said, "Well, hey, man, suppose you get there and you find out it ain't no heaven." Well, then I lived the best life I could. Ain't no heaven. You got a bigger problem. If, if, if you think it ain't one, then it is because now you didn't done what you wanted to do, and now you ain't going. So faith, man, all those five pillars are the cornerstone of it. So I mean, there's a, there's a generation that has watched you. Like we spoke earlier, like my son knows you for *Family Feud*. And, you know, like, all right, they've come up in a world where you've always been successful. But that always wasn't the case. And so those core principles, how would they develop throughout your career? Because I know it's, I mean, you started early, you were homeless at one point, living out your car. And so how did we start developing these core principles? Were there experiences that were happening like, "All right, there's a lesson they won't have to go through it because I did. Here's what you need to look." You know, man, um, it's that failure piece that teaches them to you. Hey, Ernest, did you know that the Black community has $2.7 trillion of spending power? Are you ready to see what you can do when you combine and recirculate our resources to expand the pool of Black excellence? I know I'm ready. And that's why we've partnered with Greenwood, the in-demand Black-owned digital banking platform. Greenwood's namesake was founded in 1906, built from the brilliance of Black dreamers looking to create a self-sufficient community in the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma, aka Black Wall Street. Today, Greenwood is a digital banking platform with the mission to strengthen the Black dollar using the same community reinforcement strategies of the original Greenwood district. And it's powered by a best-in-class mobile app that allows you to bank from anywhere. So, Ernest, if you're ready to build a new legacy of Black economic achievement, go to bankgreenwood.com/EYL and sign up to be a part of the new Greenwood community. That's bankgreenwood.com/EYL. Don't wait. Don't hesitate. Head over there now. That's why you got to lose your fear of failure because it's in the failures, it's where you learn these lessons. You know, my father used to say, "Ain't no, the best lesson you'll ever learn is a bald lesson. That lesson you pay for, that one gonna stick with you harder than anything." So when, uh, faith is when I was 10 years old and I wrote on the assignment piece of paper, "What you want to be when you grow up?" And I was 10, and I wrote, "I want to be on TV." Okay, that's faith. I, I didn't know I couldn't. So I just wrote it. On Bill Cosby was on TV in 1966. So in 1968, when Bill Cosby came on TV, the whole block cleared out. Everybody went in the house, watched Bill Cosby. He was on *I Spy*. He was a Black dude that was talking on television to white people and telling them what to do. Oh, man. We were sitting in there all day. So two years after that, when a lady asked me what I want to do, I said, "I want to be on TV." Now, through all of my hardships, I did not get on TV till I was 36. It took 26 years for that little piece of paper to ring true. That took a lot of faith. But in there, in between there, the homelessness, the losing everything I ever earned, I ever, ever had twice. I've lost everything twice. I lost it all when I was homeless. I lost it all again in 2005. I was zeroed out in 2005. I had $1,700 left. King was a comedy, all that. 2005. Divorce. Oh, yeah. Her lawyer was outstanding. [Laughter] Yeah, he was so cold. I was in heaven. Courtroom going, next thing I knew, I had nothing. This dude was gangsta, man. You know. And then I asked some people had stole some stuff from me, an accounting, and all types of stuff happened. I lost everything. But in those dark moments was when I learned, okay, faith is belief in things that you cannot see. I don't know how I'm gonna rise up again, but I gotta believe that I am. And then you gotta keep that imagination. That I saw since I was 10, I was going to be on TV. So that imagination, I had to keep relying on that because that's all I had. You understand? And then, uh, the dream was to get on TV, and I had to keep that in my head even through the darkest moments because, see, if you master the mental aspect of it, when the stuff is happening, that comes into play. You remember all the scriptures my mama taught me. "Today is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad." And she said that to me every day I went out to school. I'm so tired of hearing that. But, man, do you know how cold that thing stuck with me? That today is the day he made. And and since I had to learn something in adversity, this is what I learned. I often asked people, I said, "How many of you all have ever had a bad day?" An audience raised a head. "How many of y'all have had days where you felt like you wasn't gonna make it?" And everybody raised their head. "How many of y'all have had days where you thought you, you just didn't know what you was gonna do?" Everybody raises their hand. I said, "Now, let me tell you something about yourself. Your track record for surviving hard days, days you weren't going to make it, thought you weren't going to make it, insurmountable days, your track record for surviving those days is 100%." That's, that's great. I used to say that to my co-workers. I was, when I was teaching, I'm like, "I had a terrible day." They were like, "Why are you always so happy?" I'm like, "If you had a terrible day, right? Really internalize that. How many good days have you had to have to realize that this one wasn't as good as the other ones?" Yeah. Like, "Yeah, you're right." Yeah. So let's just be thankful for this moment, right? We may not get it again. But every bad day you've ever had, you survived it. Exactly. You got a 100% track record. Everybody in here, everybody watching, got a 100% track record of surviving funky ass days. Everybody. So now, once I know that, when them funky days come, I'm rest assured that even if it lasts for a week or two, six months, I'm gonna survive it. Because if you wake me up in the morning, man, that's a clear sign to me to hang through with me yet. So I, I feel like I, I'm almost out of it. And eventually, you're gonna get out of whatever it is. You know, so let's, let's talk about this. Um, Steve Harvey Global. So that's, that's all your companies are underneath that, right? So I want to talk about *Family Feud Africa*. But first, I'll pick up on a conversation that we just had as far as you realizing that you wanted to change things up. How usually Hollywood is done, where you wanted to eliminate like the traditional agent route, hiring a full-time attorney without the brandon, and actually, you know, doing the deals yourself, negotiating the deals with yourself, you and your attorney, and not having to pay the percentage and not having to go through all the hassle of dealing with the traditional. So can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, see, it took me years to come to this because Hollywood is a system. They have an ingrained system out there, man. You come out here, you get an agent, then, then a lot of them got a manager too. And then when you sign a contract with a Hollywood attorney, they're 5% of your contract for the duration. So if you sign a five-year deal, they get 5% of your money for five years. And everybody falls into that deal, man. Every, because they lock you in. And then what's crazy, what I found out was, it's not a lot of agents that's beating the bushes to procure you employment. They simply list you on a roster, and when somebody wants you, they go online, and your name is under this agency's roster, and they call these people. Now, because they picked up the phone, now their ass is in for 10. Now, when they come in for 10, then you want to go do the deal, they pick up their phone and call a favorite lawyer who is their boy, who they work in conjunction. Steve, we got the guy that's gonna cut your deal. You're so busy being happy to be on TV, you say, "Okay, cool." 'Cause you don't have that lawyer normally. And now right there, you 15% of your money gone. Now, if you real stupid, you got a manager who is this dude that's some dude that's usually your homie that you started out with, and you make him your manager. Now he can be anywhere from 5 to 20%, depending on how you cut your deal with him. Now you're looking up at your money, man, and you could be out of anywhere from 15 to 25 to 30% of your money off the dribble before taxes, anything. You ain't got nothing. So if you make $1 million, $300,000 of that is gone. Yo, man, and you're doing it in California. Yeah, I think I pay taxes, bro. And now you got that, that, that franchise tax that's 7%. So now you're sitting up here going, then the government, they want 40%. Now you're sitting up here, man, 70% of your money gone. And that, and that, that's real, man. That's real talk. That's why, man, Hollywood is the land of illusion. Most of us, man, are not making what y'all think we're making. We're just not, man, because we're in that system. And it's not, it's not that's 'cause you stupid or not. It's you get caught up in the system. So as the years went by, and I'm just not getting free of this, you know what I mean? It took me a long time to figure it out. So I said, "Wait a minute, man." So I had this lawyer that was doing some deals for me with a, a business. I had this, this guy named Brandon Williams, and he was Black, and he was with this huge law firm, the acquisition merger firm, right? And he's come up to Chicago to do deals. So, man, I just liked him, man. So one day I was sitting up, man, I was watching *The Godfather*, and I was watching my favorite movie, man. And Tom is the consigliere or whatever that name is for the family, right? But he's not Italian, and he's not, he's not a made man or nothing, but he cut the deals for the Godfather. And I was sitting up, really watching that movie, one of my favorite movies. I said, "Man, that's what I need. I need a Tom. Somebody just cut my deals." So Brandon Williams, some years ago, we hooked up, and I just approached him one day. I said, "May, you ever thought about doing something else?" And he said, "No, I'm really good where I am." You know, but that's 'cause you know, you in the system too, bro. So just let me talk to you for a little bit. We talked about, I said, "Man, I'm gonna travel. I'm gonna travel the world, man. I'm finna be global. I'm gonna be, I'm gonna take my brand and spread it across the world. I ain't gonna just sit here on United States TV. I wanna go be global." I said, "Man, we can travel. We can do this." And he said, and then he went home and talked to his wife. And like, we often joke about how much smarter our wives are than us. And y'all don't get to see them in the background with them women, man, because they know who they really are. She said, "It's a no-brainer." And he had a conversation with a mom who's a lawyer. And next thing you know, he came back, and we formed a relationship. And it took me some while to get out of some of the contracts I was in. But after a while, as contracts was ending, I got rid of the lawyer. I said, "Amen, you read that paperwork and tell me what to say, because the only section I can really understand is compensation." Once you type in the word "whence," I get lost because I don't know how to make. Now I'm reading the Bible now when it's furthermore. That's why my Bible is the New Living Translation because I need just regular English words, man. Because once you say "furthermore," "whence," "hence," "after," I'm out. So I got him. And then slowly but surely, over the years, as contracts would expire, I would take the lawyer out of this, take the lawyer out of that. And then I got smarter, and I said, "I don't really need an agent." You know, I got some agents that do, IMG does some stuff. Like we're in partnership with, uh, Miss Universe and stuff, and that's a whole 'nother story. But, uh, we're in business with some stuff, and I'll allow you to package the deal for me, but that's between you and the network. But as far as now in my life, now nobody ain't nobody getting 10, ain't nobody getting five. I found a way to to just keep them out. And, you know, that ain't bad business, man. I'm just, why would I? Yeah, you're not doing nothing. I'm the one gotta put these suits on to turn these corners and create these jokes and solve these problems and be entertained and not you, man. So it was a really blessing from God, man, that taught me that side of the business, and it's brought a lot, lot more to my side of the table. And so when you do things like that, it obviously allows you to pay more to the people that you have. Why do you think that more people in Hollywood, the beasts of Hollywood, are not taking that approach? Well, I just think, man, you get caught up in the system, and it's comfortable, and it's easy. And, you know, look, man, you gotta look at some of these big boys out here, they're making so much money. You know, you look at Tyler, and Denzel, and Samuel L, and these boys, and Will Smith, these dudes is really making money, man. You know what I mean? They listen to me, they make them, they they scraping it. So, and I don't really know their particular business, but, you know, if you make X amount of dollars, and you know, off the dribble, and you're comfortable, and you got a team, sometimes comfort causes you don't want to have. You got to get a lawyer. You do have to get a lawyer. I'm just not gonna pay you 5%. You know, why don't you tell me what your hourly rate is, how many hours it takes you to cut this contract, and then let that be your money? But you get in the TV business, it's like that now. I would think of Denzel, 'cause he's such a brilliant dude, man, and his wife, Pauletta, I'm pretty sure she didn't sit down, figure this out. So, and Tyler, Tyler's a gangster too, 'cause Tyler, I think, has done more in our lifetime, man, in this generation. I don't think there's been anybody Black that's been more successful than this dude in terms of ownership. Now, the queen was open for a long time, Oprah. Oprah ain't no joke, but she teaches it to us. She then told me, "Steve, got to get on the ship." That's Tyler's whole mantra. But I think what, what Tyler fitting to do of late, gonna change the game. He's fitting, he finna go past everybody. So, just really quick, so even like the shows that had your name as a title, so we had *The Steve Harvey Show*, which was on WB, and obviously you have to see *All the Show* on NBC talk show. They're licensing the name or how does that work? There was no ownership of those. See, I didn't get, I wasn't a businessman when *The Steve Harvey Show* was. I was just happy to be on TV. You know, I just took my check and went out and said, "I own 12% of the show back in." But I learned real quick in Hollywood, you never see back in. They got a different type of arithmetic. It's like the music industry. The only people that you make true back in with is book people. Book people are the most honest people I've ever done business with. Books, they're honest. Music and TV, you're not gonna get no back in, partner. How, man, by the time they get through doing their arithmetic, I ain't made back in on none of my shows ever because they saying they didn't hit the numbers that it was supposed to hit. Even in syndication, bro, *Steve Harvey Show*, I never saw back in. Nevo. I got just, it's just crazy, man. So I started figuring that out, and I went, "Okay, you know, my business with Fremantle, which is one of the best companies I've ever dealt with, they're very honest and forthright. But when I signed a deal to do *Family Feud*, you know, look, man, *Family Feud* was a 20-year franchise, and they had ownership, and they couldn't get, I, you know, I was going through tax problems back then, I just wanted the check. So I took the check. Over the years, I still couldn't get ownership. But since I can't get ownership, I'll tell you what though, I'll tell you what, I might not have ownership, but you're gonna feel like I'm one. And so we've, we've negotiated really nicely with them, and you're the longest-running host in the history of the show, and it's the number one syndicated show on Earth. Speaking of *Family Feud*, so you have an unprecedented deal with *Family Feud* where you actually produced the show in Africa. Yeah, which I believe is number one in Ghana and South Africa. So talk about that. Well, that was funny, man. I was, uh, sitting up one day, I was in Botswana at the Diamond Council thing, which is a another business I was interested in. So I was over there at the Diamond Council conference in Botswana, and I picked up the phone, I called Brandon, and it was just one day, I was sitting there, man, and I saw this facility. I said, "Man, you know what really be funny? To do *Family Feud* in Africa." So I picked up the phone and called Brandon because the thing I love about Brandon is he don't ever ask me no, "How are we gonna?" 'Cause he don't know. I want to hear that. See, the thing that's important thing about people around me that I hire, when I, when I have a vision and God show me something, I call you and tell you to do it. Don't start telling me why it won't work. I don't want to hear that. I already know it's gonna be hard to do. I already know it's gonna be obstacles. I want to hear that. I want you to show me how we can do it. So I picked up the phone, I said, "Brandon." He said, "Yeah, man, what's happening?" I said, "I'm in Botswana, man. How is it?" I said, "Hey, man, call Fremantle. I want to, uh, I want to do *Family Feud* in Africa." He said, "Okay, tell me what you want to do." I said, "I want to do the show, *Family Feud* in Africa." Amen. Amen. Let me know what they say. And I know I threw him into something. But this dude, man, he don't call me back with no excuses. Do you know, man, as long as we've been together, this brother has never given me a single excuse? Because that's one thing I'm, I'm, I'm really, I don't, I don't do excuses, man. Don't, don't please don't tell me an excuse that that serves us no good. An excuse, I don't do excuses. I've never given anybody excuse. When I make a mistake, I just eat mine. I don't do excuses. So please don't tell me your excuse. Brandon Williams has never given me an excuse. He got on that phone. I said, "Brandon, how's going, man?" He said, "Man, give me, I'm working on a couple things for you." "Okay, cool." Next thing I know, he said, "Hey, man, there's a way we can do it. We can buy the international rights." I said, "Okay, bound." He said, "Well, it's gonna be a little caught." "That's, that's okay. Just go buy." He cut the deal, and he bought the international rights to South Africa and to Ghana. Then I said, "Okay, B, let's go and make TV." He went, "Um, okay." And next thing you know, he went over there, and everybody told him, uh, this was in what month was that? We started talking, uh, that was probably April. February. I told him in February, March, and they say it would take a year and a half to get this set up. That was in February. In November, we was taping. Because Brandon, no, what you talking about? We're going to get on TV now. And so I go to Africa, and we're over there, and their mouths are open. Because they couldn't believe it. "Wait a minute, you're a major TV star in the United States? You're going to come to Africa in our studio and shoot this show?" "Yeah." "Oh, you, you're a host?" "Yeah, yeah. I host the show." "Yeah, 'cause ain't nobody gonna do it like me." So yeah, let me go. How long did that take to do the season? Or how many episodes did it, uh, 26 episodes because they do a weekly show. It's like an American TV season. It's 22 episodes weekly. That's an American TV show. They wanted a full season. We gave them 26 episodes in Ghana and 26 episodes in the U.S. in, in, uh, in South Africa. How long did that take? Uh, it took about a month or so to get it all together. It took, it was a lot of, because now, man, we got to get questions that's unique to South Africa and Poland. Because I'm asking people questions, I have no idea what the answers. Because I was there, "What's your favorite dish in Africa?" "Bunny Chow." "The hell is that?" "Bunny Chow." You look it up. They like, "I'm looking to do like, don't fried chicken." Clearly, it has to be the number one apple. And they were saying stuff like, "Pop, pop." "The hell is pop, dog?" All this stuff was on the board. So it was really funny. And then there was a language barrier because the accents. There's 2,000 languages in Africa, and you got tribes coming in as families, man, dressing up, and they use, they speak in English, but they have heavy accents to me. But I'm the one on, everybody understood them except me. I'm the one with the accent. And their names, we couldn't even fit their names on the cards. I mean, they got some names, man, that you, you'd have to put a nameplate on these people. And it was so funny, man. It was, it was the funniest show I've ever done was that. And then once we got it on the air, they couldn't believe we did it. And then it aired, and we were the number one show in South Africa, the number one show in Ghana. Is that their plans to expand to other countries in Africa? Uh, particularly English speakers. My goal is to do like World Cup *Family Feud* where I want to do it in a big facility, and I want to bring in country against country. I want to have Ghana against the Congo, uh, Egypt against Kenya, uh, South Africa against Botswana versus Dog. I want to have them in there with flags because they're so enthusiastic, man. 'Cause number one, when I finally went over there to start taping, the whole thing was, "So you are you are coming? So Steve Harvey is really coming to Africa?" "Yeah." "Yeah, man. We believe that when Uncle Steve comes here." "I believe it when we see it." So when we went there and we started taping, it was mind-blowing. It was such a popular show, man. And it worked. And I hear that Africa and the UAE, you have, you have businesses in both. But let's talk about Africa. Systems. Talk about Africa. You see a lot of opportunity in Africa, right? Like outside of just doing a show. I understand that, you know, you, you're looking at Africa as a place to do investments, things of that nature. Talk about that as far as because we actually had the opportunity to go to Africa for the first time a few months ago. We went to Nigeria and we went to Egypt. And it was for us because the way, you know, people were tapped in with our podcasts out there, they love us out there. And they were saying like, "You should do this out here. You should do an actual EYL University like here where you're actually teaching people about financial literacy." And just to see the enthusiastic, um, spirit, it just let me know like, there's so much room for opportunity out there. Like, just from us looking at it. So I'm curious to hear your standpoint. But see, for you all to go over there, it's brilliant because you all are forming the bridge. That's my goal. Is to create that bridge between African Americans and Africans because there's more of a similarity than we ever, like when you was over there, it looked like you recognized all of them. They looked just like Detroit. I mean, the way they walk, everything. I, I thought I saw so many people I knew because we are so similar in design, the way we walk, the way we move. It was just amazing. But what we got to do, man, is create that bridge. Like brothers like yourself who go over there, whose podcast is probably, but who can teach and share what we know. You know, I'm trying. Like, all the young Africans want to come to America. But I tell them, I said, "Look, man, you sure? You sure you won't come over here and be in this? This ain't what you think it is." See, when I'm in Ghana or South Africa, and I get stopped by the police, guess what I get? I get a warning. I get a ticket. I give him $100 and I drive home. And I got $100. So chances are, I ain't got a ticket yet. If you wanna be speeding my ass off, I've never, since I've been over there, saw on the news or nothing that somebody got pulled over by the police and got shot. They don't shoot you in Africa. I said, "Man, y'all sure y'all won't come over here?" 'Cause y'all don't understand that. And then when you're in South Africa, you hear about the difference between the Blacks and the Colors. I said, "Well, let me help you out with that. You come to America, your ass is Black. You can call them Coloreds over here if you want to, you can call them Black, but you come to the United States, your ass is fitting to be Black." So you sure you won't come over here? I think it's more beneficial for us to go home. See, this is how I describe it. America is my home. This is my home. My children are here, my grandchildren are here, a lot of my business is here. But Africa is my homeland. Me going to Africa is like going to a place called home that I've never been. When you land in Africa, you immediately feel good, don't you? Yeah. It's a good box, dog. It's crazy. [Music] Because you're home. No, this is where you're from. Your feet belong on this soil. We was ripped from there. So when I go to Africa, man, it's the place I get to walk around and I'm good all the time because the majority of the people look just like me everywhere I go. And that's a warm feeling, man. And if I could take what we've learned over here as African Americans and share that with them and empower them, that becomes great. But I think what people don't understand is how rich of a continent Africa really is. Do you realize, man, it's the only country in the world that don't have to import nothing? They'll need your food, they'll need your energy, they'll need your gold, they'll need your diamonds, they'll need your coal, they don't need your uranium, they'll need your plaque, they'll need nothing. Africa is the only country in the world. And they'll need your oil. You, they ain't got to import nothing. But they've been over there just raped, colonization, the Dutch, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the French, the Chinese, they're just over there just raping them, man. And so if we can go over there, because they got, they man, they got some money over there. They got some dudes over there that's that's making something. It had me thinking, but you said everything was true. And it was like, "All right, you were going to the UAE and not only bringing *Family Feud* to Africa, but bringing festivals. And we were supposed to meet at the last one in the UAE." So why was it important to do it specifically in the UAE? Well, see, the UAE is very different for me. I'm accepted over there like, like I never thought I would be. Because the UAE for me is like, it's like they like brothers, man. I mean, I'm, I'm so enamored with the UAE now. The draw for me in the UAE, it is unbelievable. Peace. If you want to go somewhere and walk down the street and not have to worry about crime. If you want to go somewhere and walk down the street and not have to worry about racism, police brutality, corrupt government, then go to the UAE in the Middle East. I'm telling you right now, it, I, I don't know of a place on earth like it. There's no crime. Don't buy, steal your car. They don't steal cars over there.

They don't ain't no shootings, ain't no armed robberies, ain't nobody getting stabbed. Where's this? Look, man, I can take a cigar and walk down the beach. All I'm gonna do is have to take selfies. And they're polite, and they're respectful, and it's because of their culture and their faith, man. That makes them who they are. That you get a clear picture there of what Islam is. It's not what it's made to be in the propaganda machine. Everybody you walk by ain't feeling to pull a cord and blow up the market. That ain't what's happening, man. These people, man, are living their life. They pray a lot of times a day, man. I'm my business partner, man, we'll be talking. He said, "Hey, man, you mind if I go in the other room to pray?" And he'd have made me pray more because I'll be going, "Man, don't you, you pray all these times a day?" Yeah, man. And my business partner, he's 34 years old. Let's do. And I'm just going, "Wait a minute, man. How did they get this way?" And it's their faith and their culture, and it's the way they treat people. It's 160 nationalities that live in the UAE. I mean, they got everybody. There's no homelessness. Ain't nobody living on the street. Ain't no paper on the ground. Go to Dubai. Go to Dubai and open up. There's no paper on the ground. Ain't nobody begging. Got no cup jingling. It's because no, we have a job for you if you come here. We have a job for you. The only people that don't want to work over there is because they don't want to work. Everybody's employed. Everybody gets taken care of with free medical. Everybody. That is a very, very special place to me. And I think our company, Melt UAE, is where we can introduce, uh, what the Middle East is from that region to America and the world and help with some of the falsehoods that's been out about it.

Going back to the conversation about Hollywood, um, I want to talk about this because you said that, you know, the back end, you never get paid on the back end. Um, and like, we've actually have conversations about, we had conversations with like some Hollywood companies and we got talked about the back end and stuff like that. So it's interesting that you say that. So like, what is some, what are some things that you learned as far as like, do you always try to negotiate like, well, just for young people that's coming up, like EP credit or like get paid upfront or some level of ownership? Like, what is some terms? I feel like a lot of people just don't know that information and you can't even ask a question if you're not equipped with some level of knowledge. Though the best thing I can tell you is if you have an idea, before you go around the town pitching this idea, have your paperwork in order. Make sure you have the domains for that name. Make sure you have the IPs, any trademarks, before you walk around pitching your idea. Have everything on paper. Get your trademarks. Get your IP because that's it. Ownership. Nobody's done it better than Tyler Perry. This guy right here is complete ownership of everything he do. So when he go to Hollywood, he can do it the way he want to. See, it took me a while to learn that part of it, man.

I'ma tell you something, man. I don't know how this is gonna go with the country, but this is a, a long time ago in the '90s, I created a show on the WB called Steve Harvey's Big Time. Do you know what Steve Harvey's Big Time was? Because they didn't believe me when I told them, "Y'all ought to take Showtime at the Apollo and put it on mainstream TV instead of having me come on at one o'clock in the morning." I used to tell them that. "No, you can't do that." "No, no, no, no." So I said, "Well, let me give them a version of it." I said, "Let me create Steve Harvey's Big Time." So I went to the fledgling network, WB, and they put it on. I didn't have the business of it. I should have owned the IP, the trademark. Because you know what Steve Harvey's Big Time was? I had acts from all over the world come on the show. I had three judges and I had a host. That stayed on TV two years. It ended May 10th, 2005. I was in the middle of a divorce. My head was clouded. I didn't have the business. Along comes the show called America's Got Talent. He's gonna say that, you know what America's Got Talent is? Shows come from all over the world, different acts. They got three judges and they got a star. Well, guess what? That's my IP. That's my concept. That's my whole thought. But I had no business for it. Look, man, the first year of America's Got Talent was all acts from Steve Harvey's Big Time. And they took all the producers I had from Steve Harvey's Big Time and gave them jobs. If I understood my business, America's Got Talent would belong to me. And Steve Harvey would not be sitting here talking to y'all.

[Laughter] I'm thinking in my mind like, "I could." Once you were describing him, like, "I know it's America's Got Talent." And obviously, Nick Cannon, another guy who's doing incredible media. I feel like that could have been you hosting it. But I want to go something because you said something earlier and it just caught my mind about the most honest people being the people who are writing the books. And so I know you've wrote, you've written three and the fourth one's on the way. But from those books, you actually turned those into movies. Yeah, right. So Think Like a Man, obviously one of those, those classic movies. What was that process like in terms of ownership? Right, because now it's your IP, the book that's turned into it. I know you're the voiceover in the movie. And so what was that process like? That deal wasn't bad for me. It should have been better. I did, once again, I missed a couple of points. Now, the book, completely mine. I've made more money from that book, man. I can't even tell you. And I still get checks. They still send you a check. I get paid every April 1st and every October 1st, and I still get checks from the book. I don't even have to check on it. The book business is honest. I'll give you an example. Like when I go to a book signing and I got to fly there or get a hotel, if you're in the record business, they take all that. They put surcharges on and they charge it back against your deal and your record sales. Don't do that in a book business. Whatever your book sales is, whatever your percentage is, that's your check. Whatever it costs to promote it, ain't got nothing to do with you. So the book business, I found to be very, very clean. Uh, back in for other stuff, man. Now, when I went to the movie, yeah, it was a tough time for me because I was in a lot of tax trouble. So I took a big check from Sony for the rights. And then I made back end, I made back end points on the movie. I did, but I could have done better. They have you involved in the process of actually creating it and producing or not? No, that was mostly Will Packer. They asked me a couple of questions. They asked me what I thought of Kevin Hart. And I was sitting up here going, "I mean, the little dude is cold." Yeah, he wasn't who he is now, but I knew right away that dude right there because he was putting the work in. Kevin was putting into work as a young stand-up. His, his stand-up used to didn't be that good. He'll tell you that. But neither was mine because he was a, you know, he worked mostly white rooms and you had to be a certain way to survive white rooms. My early in my career was all white rooms until the comedy act theater got started. And Joe Torre came one night and saw me at the Punch Line in Buckhead and took me down to the Comedy Act Theater in the '90s and said, "Man, you ought to come see how they." So we went to the Waffle House and I was telling them stories about my father. Joe Torre's cracking up. He's a man, "Why don't you tell these stories on stage?" I said, "I can't tell it like that in front of white folks." He said, "Let me take you down." He took me to the Comedy Theater. And a black dude went up on stage. He had on pajamas and had a Barbie doll stuck in the pocket of the pajamas. He never mentioned the damn dog. He never mentioned him down pajamas. And all this what was talking about was fine fish. And man, some black people was knocking [ __ ] over laughing, man. I was laughing so hard at this black dude because all he was talking about was how to fry fish. But every black person in that knew what he was talking about. And he went through the different variations of hot sauce and what you got it. And it was so black. It was just so black. Like it's a fish fry. Oh, dawg. I was in there vomiting. So the next night, I heard him. Got finished with my set at the Punch Line, so I could go back down. And that's what I meant. Mike Williams, he said, "Hey, man, going up on stage. Let me see what you gotta give. You got five minutes." Now, I had been at the Apollo. So a lot of people knew me from the Apollo. But when I walked up there, man, I left my white act that I had written for the Punch Line. And I was doing jokes about my father barbecuing and stuff, man. Them black people was knocking [ __ ] over. I mean, they was just raking [ __ ] off the tables. And I had never seen black people in a club because black people laughed different. They emotional. They hit people that they rode with. They, they've been there. It feel. And I was in this. I said, "Man, this is magical." And it changed my life because I started writing my jokes even in the white club as my black ass self. And so what I learned at that particular time was I could become a crossover act. But the way I've always crossed over is I build the bridge and I invite white folks over to me. The problem with most blacks is they build a bridge and then they cross it. Then when the bridge burn down, their ass can't come back home. I build a bridge and I allow white folks to come to me. The way I talk on Family Feud is how I talk right now. I'm not fitting to change that, man. So you can be okay with me. No, this is me. I've been told all the time. Like, I tell this story all the time. I was on NBC when I first got to talk show. And they said, uh, they sent this lady in to talk to me. And, uh, she was a lean. She was a, what is it? Linguist. She was a linguist. I didn't know what that was. So I thought she was in there to teach me how to fix pasta. And I thought that was nice. I always wanted to know a little bit about pasta. And so she says, "No, I'm your linguistics coach." And I said, "Well, what you mean?" She said, "NBC feels that if you speak more grammatically correct, you'll be more successful on TV." I said, "I ain't going to do all that." She said, "Excuse me." I said, "I ain't finna do all that." She said, "Could you say what you said slowly for me, sir?" "I ain't fit." I said, "I ain't fitness do all that." She said, "That's exactly why I'm here." She said, "Do you understand what we can become if you speak better?" I said, "Well, yeah. I ain't going to be about it, though." She said, "Excuse me." I said, "I ain't fitting to be about it, though." Sir, this is exactly why I'm here. I said, "Ma'am, let me ask you a question." I said, "Because I'm not finna change." She said, "Why not?" I said, "Let me ask you a question. Which one of these sound better to you? I am broke." Or "Army is rich." I say, "See, now you're talking to me. But I'm just rich. I'm already rich." So where you fitting to go with this, man? That lady packed her stuff up. She said, "This black son of a [ __ ]." I know she wanted to see black ass bastard. She packed this, you know, and walked out of there. And I tell that to people all the time, man. Bye, Felicia. Because I'm not a dog. I ain't finna do that. I'm not changing.

So when did it, when did it actually, because you were saying you have financial hardship in 2005 and you, you still was, uh, making some mistakes. But in your state now, so obviously things changed dramatically. So what was the turning point? What was the turning point from, you know, making mistakes to actually going on a skyrocket? I know, man, that this gonna sound like cliche-ish and corny, but a woman, a woman was a difference maker in my life. My wife. When I married Marjorie, man, 2007, 2000, 2007, we got married. It changed the game for me because for the first time in my life, I was at peace. Because she made me good with who I was. She kept telling me, "You're a major TV star. Don't, don't believe this here, Steve. You look good. You can do this. You're talented. You're the best." And I had a peaceful home. I had never had a peaceful home life before, man. I was coming home. I wasn't sitting in the car looking at the door for three hours scared to go in there. You know, you probably might have been in something like that. Fortunately enough. But unfortunately, no. But you know, you never know. You know, faith, man. Your faith. Yeah. I know. But you're gonna sit in that driveway. But even if you're happy, if you piss her off, you're gonna go sit in that car, dawg. Cause at least I can lock these doors and roll these windows up in this car. But if I sit in this house, I'm here. So, you know, I'm happy about that. But I was in a horrible situation. And this woman came along. It gave me peace. Peace is priceless, man. And I was able to think clearly for the first time. And so I was able to start seeing stuff. Now, we got in huge. I got in a huge tax situation in 2008 because my divorce was in 2005. And my accountant had gotten in cahoots. And next thing you know, my accountant died. And a girl that worked for him called my lawyer and said, "We have a problem." She had found on the floor all my tax forms for seven years, signed and with the checks stapled to them. So I'm thinking, "Out of signed and unstapled checks?" Well, they were cashing the checks, keeping the money, and not turning in the tax form. So, yeah. Count. That's why we interviewed Fat Joe. Similar situation. He went to jail for that. Actually, tax evasion. So, yeah. Yeah. Accountant. You, how you were signing the check? Oh, so you didn't know who the check was being made out to? Oh, to the government. So how did they cash it? Well, they didn't cash it. They took the money out of the account that matched the exact. Because I wasn't watching it. Like, you didn't see, uh, hundreds, six hundred thousand? Yeah, you look deducted. Yeah. So I'm thinking this to check. Little did I know, it was some people taking the money out for seven years. For seven years. How much money did that? I ended up owing 22 million. Wow. 22 million with the with the penalties. So now listen to me, man. Me and my wife in 2008, I get the call. And the way I found out was my lawyer called me and said, "Hey, man, we got a problem. You haven't paid taxes in seven years." I said, "Man, get what are you talking about? I paid taxes. I've been writing the checks and all this here." "Oh, man," he said, "this woman found your taxes in your accountant's office on the floor. Every tax check I had written in every was stapled together for seven years. Quarterly taxes, all of it." So he said, "Man, that's tax evasion. You can go to prison." And I said, "What are we going to do?" So he said, "Hold on, man. Let me get some lawyers." So he called up some tax accountants out of Chicago. These boys was the best. And they sat me down and they said, "Man, we got a major problem." He said, "I got a friend work at the IRS." "Let me take the first year." We took the first year and we sent it in. He said, "Man, what this is an old tax return." He said, "Man, we got a problem." He got more. But he didn't know it. And so we need a tax payment plan. So the tax payment plan was so astronomical that it was no way I could pay this. So the deal was, if you miss one payment, we come and seize all your assets and you're going to jail. That was the deal. So the way I found out I was in real bad trouble was my accountants, my former manager, lawyer got on a conference call to discuss it. But they sent out an email with the conference call number to my assistant. But it wasn't supposed to go to me. She inadvertently gave it to me. I wasn't supposed to be on the call. So when I logged in, they were already talking. And I just didn't announce myself. And I heard them say, "Nobody can live under this amount of stress. There's no way he can pay the back taxes, pay his current taxes and his living expenses." And I heard a guy on the phone say, "What are we going to do when he goes to jail?" And I hung the phone up. I went upstairs. I said, "Marjorie, Dodgson, Margie, we got a problem." When I explained it to her, Marjorie started crying. She sat down and cried. My wife cried for two straight days. She said, "Steve, what you gonna do?" I said, "I'm gonna go to work." I took every comedy gig in this country. I signed every contract. I went to work, man. I worked every single Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I went to every venue, the Verizon, Staples Center, MCI, Phillips, uh, uh, I, I sold out the Fox. I, so I went everywhere. I stayed on the radio, man. I'm coming, I'm coming, sold out. I never missed a payment. And for four years in a row, I was sending $650,000 a month to the government, plus I had to pay my current taxes. I couldn't get behind on nothing. And I was living so, I was credit cards running them up, paying them off. And finally, man, in 2012. I was just go, "Okay, you got me thinking now." This is the pay-per-view of that. Well, it was coming to that. Okay, two things happened. Okay, to 2012, I sold 49% of my radio company to iHeart. [Music] I got checkmate. I got me a check. And then so I paid the government completely off to zero. And that was the first time, man, I could breathe. And then the pay-per-view. I said, "Let me get out of stand-up." Because my wife says, "Steve, you feel to be a major TV star. You're gonna have to stop telling the jokes you're telling, 'cause you're gonna ruin your career." Because I, she saw the political correctness turning. And so she said, "Steve, you can stop if you want to." I said, "Baby, I can't ever stop telling jokes. It's who I am." She said, "Well, okay. But you got to watch what you say." And all of my TV shows are sponsor-driven. Radio or sponsorship-driven. I said, "Man, let me get out of this 'cause I need time to go do more TV." And so I did one last comedy show. But I did it on pay-per-view. And little did I know, for $8, you could watch my last. I had no idea how many people was gonna tune in for that. I made a lot of money. It was, it was the biggest single paycheck I ever made. And next thing you know, I was back. Hey, Tyler, about that house. Hey, sitting over there. I said, "I'm back, man." And then, uh, things. And after that, man, was all because my wife had this vision for me and she could see it. And that was to turn. So the account, you say he died, but you couldn't sue his estate. And no, there was no, there was no course of action that could be taken. Yeah. So because, like, the money that, it's the same situation with Fat Joe. It's crazy. So this, so you lost the money that he took, but then you had to pay that money in taxes and then penalty. So it's like a double-edged sword. It's crazy, man. It's nothing but the grace of God that I didn't go to jail.

How often, because it's like, it's so crazy that this story, because it's like Fat Joe, yourself, Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, like this happens a lot. Like, what would you advise for people that, as a learning experience, like, just to always watch your accounts a little bit? Don't let nobody sign your check. Don't let nobody have access to your money. Even if it's your wife, you still got to watch it yourself. Cause little did I know, man, I, I wasn't moving the money. The only other person that could move the money had access to the account. So when you deposit, when you withdrawing the money out, like, let's say tax was $600,000 and you take exactly $600,000 out. I'm thinking that's the, the check cleared. Oh, it made. They never. Okay, the exact amount. I don't care if it was, if it was $1.2 million, 32 cents. $1.2 million, 32 cents got took out. Exactly. So I'm thinking I'm just looking at real going down the sheet, not realizing that that check ain't cleared. And that's what happened, man. I got burnt. And that happened for seven years of money, man. That's a lot. That's crazy.

You spoke about the marriage in 2007 that brought you peace. I want to talk about generational wealth and I kind of want to change the version of sustainable wealth because you have seven kids, five grandkids, seven and seven, seven, seven. Yeah, they had two more, two more. Seven little machines over here right now, cranking them out. Right? And so I'm interested because obviously maybe your children have seen some of the the setbacks that you've had. Mm-hmm. But your grandchildren will never see it. They, they don't know anything about that. And so it's tough for them to understand the type of perseverance, the type of determination, resiliency to sustain the things you've been through. So how do we teach from what you've been through to them? You know, man, I ain't figured that out yet because there's even a hiccup between, not the grandkids, but my own kids. Right. Right. Okay. Cause look, bro, most of us that are successful today, oftentimes are the first ones in our family to be successful. I'm pretty sure before Rick Ross hit it, what, no more? I'm, I know before Jay-Z hit it, one no more in his family. You know, we ain't got nobody to go to to figure this thing out. So what happens is, and then you say, as most good parents, I want my children to have a better life than one I had. So you try to protect your children from the hustle and grit that you was under. You know, my kids ain't got to come up like me, figure it out and work through this and work like that. But in that, though, you've made a mistake because now, see, all of my children live their life as high acrobats with a net. Right? So if they lose grip of the handle, daddy down there got a net. I ain't handling that. So I was a high wire act. And when I slipped off, my ass hit the ground. Had to get repaired. The incline back up there. They got a safety belt on. They on the hunt. They doing wild ass flips. They hit the thing and the little cable pick them back up. And it's messed up, man, because you and I've talked about this with all the brothers I know that's successful. I don't know nobody to figure this one out, man. How do we teach our children the hustling grind when we're trying to keep them out of the hustling grind? You understand? Why would you not give your child an allowance and you have it? Why would you not? So now, plus you want them in the best schools, right? So now you got them in school with these white kids. They sitting up in here with the latest on iPads, iPhones. You can't send your little black ass kid up there without that 'cause you trying to teach him how to be tough, strong, wicked. No, you got to put his little punk ass in the same outfit. Say, you know, 'cause come on, man, you can't have your child up there looking crazy. But now you mad 'cause they ain't got the same grit. You got the same hustle. Like, I look at them all, man, and I just go, "I'm proud of what they're becoming." But I know, man, that if something go really wrong for them, they got me. Yeah. But when something went really wrong for me, my ass just had to live in my car. I couldn't go to my daddy and get a thousand for no apartment. Well, which, look, man, I was in college for three years before I flunked out. My father sent me money one time. He sent it in an envelope. And it had two index cards. And when I opened it up, it had a flat Chris, five dollar bill in it. And the note on the index card was this [ __ ] gonna have to stop. [Applause] This [ __ ] got to stop. Five dollars, man. Three years of college. He sent a five dollar bill. And that was the message on the card. I opened that card. I went, "Man, this [ __ ] got to stop." I went on book course. This much, bro, bro. I had a job all through college, bought books and everything. My father gave me nothing. What? Nothing. Something to be going. Look, man, my kid Teddy Cow failed to pay their insurance 'cause they forgot. They come to me. "We gotta get another car." Well, you ain't gonna drive none of mine. I don't have cars you can drive. They already know. None of my children. Here's the only thing. None of my children have ever driven one of my cars because I don't have drivable cars. I ain't got no car you can go scrape. I got caught. See, and people ask me all the time, man, "Why you buy such expensive cars?" 'Cause if this all go away one day and I got to go back to living in a car, it's gonna be that [ __ ] gonna be nice. Phantom. I'm being afraid. I'm in the backseat of a Phantom out of the room. I got lights in the ceiling. That's what I'm gonna be home. Let's see. So quit asking me why I spend so much money on the car 'cause if I gotta go live back in that thing again, that's a nice way to live. Steve, living nice.

I brought up the family piece because I know, um, uh, Lori and yourself have gone into business, uh, with Moon Ultra. So what, I mean, what's that process like knowing that one of your children has the, you know, the business acumen to say, "I want to do this"? You know, Lori, man, is really great. I got a few business men in the family. You know, the two youngest ones, Wynton and Lloyd, are figuring it out. Lori's, Lori came to me and said she didn't want to go to college no more. And I was like, "I'll be damned. That's a fine time after I don't pay these money." You know, we, we could have had this discussion for the tuition. You know, I can't get it back. But she had a plan. And it's been really amazing watching her grow and develop because of a couple of things, man. I'm so protective of her because I know what she up against, you know. And but she's always wanted to be a business person. And so, you know, you watch your kids grow and develop. You watch them learn. They make mistakes as we all do. But what Lori did was, Lori has, uh, I've, she just always asked me a question, "Dan, what's it like for this? What's it like for that?" And I could see her wanting more. But this Moon Ultra investment that we invested in, but her skincare line was all her. All the vision of her and her mother. Her and her mother. Her mother had this vision before, but she put it on the back burner. And she dumped it all in with Lori because Lori got smart. Lori has a team. Lori has a CEO mentality. She understands it now. She gets it. You know, she's been through the washer out here. She know what this social media can be. She learned how to make it more of a friend of hers than the enemy. And she just got real smart, man. And she'll come to me and she'll go, "Dad, I'm thinking about doing this. What do you think?" I don't always agree, but I don't have to. Because what's in Lori's imagination, I don't have to see. Because God ain't going to put her imagination in my head. So since I understand that principle, when Lori comes to me with this, what people think is this wild, crazy idea, like this girl right here is not gonna stop, man. Her skincare line is good. She's into fashion. She's smart. And, uh, it's just a pleasure watching her. My oldest daughter, the twins, Brandy is on her own with her beyond her element that she does speaking engagements. Carly, that girl went out here, married her husband who came and asked me for her hand in marriage on a golf course. I had a 7-iron in my hand. I wanted to crack his head wide open because I'm thinking, "Fine time to ask me to marry my daughter." And I just lost this round of golf out here. But he's a good guy. She got it together. She has been agent of the year with State Farm now for two years and running. This girl and opened up agencies and stuff. Oh, sure. She's in the insurance business. Yeah. Yeah. That's where you stay. You started y'all started in that. I wasn't never agent of the year. I was stealing premiums and stuff. I was at the lower level. Real Cleveland player. Yeah. Some things was, I had to make some survival decisions when I was selling insurance. If you gave me your premium, um, but she's doing really, really well. Jason, uh, my other son is, uh, in the fashion business with his wife. He had a shoe line out for a while. It kind of was hard to keep afloat. Now he's back down at Basel again. He's got his clothing line he's working on with his wife, who was a model, the runway model. They met her. That's a long story. But he's giving me more grandkids than anybody. And he's doing well. My oldest son, Broderick, works on all my TV shows because he just wants, he wants to be in TV, uh, directing and TV, uh, production. So he's working as a second stage director and stuff for all my shows. Wynton Dale's photography on my shows. But Wynton does videos. He's did a lot of work with Kanye too, chains, a lot of artists and stuff. Wynton travels to Dubai, working. He does, uh, work for the, uh, uh, Department of Tourism over there. So when all of the kids, man, are getting it. They're not where they want to be, but they're getting it. And, um, I told them all, I think what helped him was I said, "I was cutting everybody off." And, um, I didn't. But it felt good saying it. But I didn't. I told Lori I was going to cut her off. And she just went, "Daddy, stop." That was all she said. Was, "Don't, don't play. Don't play." Because Lori really thinks she's the special one. She really does. Lori, I told her I was going to cut off because she's making a lot of money right now. And I was going to cut her off. And she just started laughing. And then she said, "Well, and you're not going to speak to me anymore?" I said, "Yeah." "I still talk to you." She said, "But not if you cut me off." So can't cut her off. So, but they're doing well.

Let me ask you this, um, you're also an angel investor. So you invested in Coinbase, DraftKings, Airbnb, all pre-IPO. How'd you get, how'd you get in that world? Well, because I got a couple of smart people at work for me. Tabeti Stevens is the head of my, uh, global business development and strategist. He brings a lot of these things to me because, you know, really, like I said, man, I'm in the mental game of it. When it comes to the technical stuff, I just surround myself with people who are technically smart. Now, Brandon is not only my legal, he's my CEO, he's chief operating, he's in charge of everything. And they all report to him. But Trubedie Stevens has bought me the majority of these deals, especially in the tech space. Uh, the way I got this kid was, I wanted my son to help me run my company, my oldest son Broderick, who's in television. But he came to me and said, "Dad, you really want your business to grow? Hire my best friend." And I thought that was really smart of him because he could have took this check. But he said, "No, Dad, this is what he does." He grabbed him. He graduated, uh, magnum [ __ ] laude from Morehouse. He had cut all these offers to go to all of these, uh, Ivy League schools. He had full rides to go to all these schools and stuff. And I was sitting down with him one day and I said, "Well, how much does it cost to go to these Ivy schools?" And he told me. And I said, "Well, when you get this degree at these Ivy League schools, how much money will you make a year?" And then he told me. And I said, "How many years is this going to take to do that?" He told me. Then I said, "Well, how much, you know, already spent going to school?" And he told me. And when he told me, it just didn't make no damn sense to me. So I said, "I tell you what, man. If you come work for me." He said, "I'm gonna be in exports and imports. And I'm gonna be taking big meetings." "Oh, you won't. You on big meetings? Oh, you won't sit in big meetings? I got big meetings for your ass tomorrow." And so I hired him and gave him a salary that'll save all that going to school for it. And how many years has been now? Beaty, seven years. And, and the way we started was, I took $400,000. Gave him $400,000 and said, "Hey, man, show me what you would do in the stock market." $400,000. Just give it another. When I tell you that, he gave me 10 times that money in two years. And then has quadrupled it to get that money just sitting over there making money in stocks. All his picks and stocks. All his. Every last one of them. I mean, I'm in some of those companies. I get them on my marketing. Market Monday. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But that dude right there. And that, and that's what it takes, you know? Yeah. I mean, we were having conversations for over the course of a few months. You probably didn't know this part, though. So Tabeti was part of a team. And we got to give credit to Chad and Kat, 85 South. The 85 South guys. Yeah. Um, they were, they, you know, found us early on. Used to work for you. Yeah. That's what I was doing. Yeah. Yeah. So all the things that they learned from working around you, they implemented and told us. And we were like, "Okay, this is great information." And so when I was talking to Tabeti about it, he was like, "Yeah, man, we all used to sit in the same room." And so indirectly, all the lessons you've been teaching them. Well, yeah, that's a good lesson. But yeah, actually, you probably wasn't even aware of that. But really, each one teach one situation. Because Chad used to work for you and he built the 85 South business structure. That's right. Mainly based off of the stuff that he learned from you. And he's been a mentor for us when we, you know, getting in the game. Really. Yeah. We got, we got our lawyer from him. Chad been a mentor for y'all. Yeah. Vice versa. Vice versa. Wow. Yeah. So he's been telling us a lot of stuff about how to run merch. Gave us the entertainment lawyer that we have. All the lessons that you, I mean, every time he tells us a lesson, it's like, "That was what." Well, see, that's cruel, man. This is what they told me. They always said this. They always said this. And now he's implemented on his own. And since we were just starting in the media space, he was giving us the advice that he learned from y'all. And so like indirectly, him and him and his cat, Joe. They were supposed to. Cat Joe and, uh, they were just bright, man. They were just bright. We just got into a situation with my former manager. And that's all. But they, I stayed in touch with them because I always believed in them. And, you know, we talk every now and then. And then I hear about stuff that they're doing. And I'm just proud of them, man, because they got it. They weren't bitter with what happened to them. See, sometimes you got to get in order to grow. You got to go. See, people understand, man, when doors close, you can't trip. When the door closed, that's simply God telling you he got another door he wants you to walk through. The problem that most people do, like during the pandemic, a lot of companies closed, a lot of people lost their jobs. It's people still standing there, "Open this company back up. I want my job back up. I'm waiting on the company to get back and come back in business." It ain't. It's dog. Most of these companies that's gone ain't coming back. So you quit beating on that door. Why don't you stop beating on that door? Stop praying to God to open that company back up. Lord, bless them to get back on their feet. Why don't you stop beating on that door and turn away from the door and walk up the hall? It's some models though. What hall? Ain't got no models. What? This is this is the hallway of life. The hallway of life got more doors. You got to turn up the hall and there's a bigger door with your name on it. But if you stay there banging on that door, you know, you can't drive your car looking in the rearview mirror. You got to look at the windshield. The rearview mirror, that's why it's this small. That windshield, that big. People can't get out of their own way because they're in that rearview mirror. What would it be? And I wish it had a shoulda, coulda, woulda. Hey, man, stop all that. Walk up the hall and go see what else God got for you.

Before we leave, I got to ask you about this Michael Jackson story. I heard you took Michael Jackson to church. Is that him? How did that? I got pictures of that day, man. It was one of my favorite moments. I, uh, you know, Mike was in a lot of trouble, man. You know, he had a, he had a, uh, publicist named Ramon Bain. And me and Mike was cool over the years. I always hung out with him and talked with him. You know, like I was the only one that ever called him the N-word and stuff like that. I just talked crazy to Mike, you know. He needed that, you know. You just, "Oh, hey, man, hey, hey." Everybody got no time for that. So one day, Ramon called me, said, "Steve, Michael want to talk to you." I said, "What's up, Mike?" He said, "I need to go to church." "I just want to go to church." And I said, "Well." He said, "Can you take me to church?" I said, "Yeah, man. I'll take you to church." Because Mike thought they was gonna convict him. And he said, "Steve, I didn't do this, man." I just believed him. I just, I've never believed that about Mike. I, I know him. I've been around him. And that's just me. Everybody else would teach that last one that came out, he did it. That's you. You don't know where all this stuff come from. After, after he did. And then if you, anyway, that's a longer story. But they just was doing this brother. So he said, "Hey, man, I want to go to church." So I said, "Okay, man. Uh, so I called up my buddy Chip Mary. That owns Chip Mary, uh, Episcopal AME Church over off of Jefferson and Adams, off of Crenshaw, Adams, over there somewhere in that area, off Crenshaw. And I called him up. He said, "Michael wants to come to this church." And I said, "Yeah, man. He wants you to talk with him and pray for him." And so, uh, I said, "Mike, I'm gonna come pick you up and we can go to church." So Mike had took the entire floor of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel and gutted it and just turned it into his own place. So I came up there and Mike met me at the door on a moped. Because he was crazy, man. That's he, another one. But she said, "Come on, let's go down to the apartment." That's Mike on a moped, dog. I'm six two. What is that? It's just, just a little bit. So ride the moped down here. We're gonna get up and go in the place. And I'm looking at this place and I'm going, "This is incredible." He didn't got it. The whole floor, just made it his apartment. Just incredible. So I'm in there, man. And, uh, I said, "Mike, we, we gotta go to church. Black people, we, we gotta go now. You know, we gotta get parking and everything." I said, "Mike, did you tell anybody?" "He was going to church." "Oh, no. I want it to be a secret." I said, "Okay, cool." I told Mary, man, we get in the car. And no, first Mike goes to get dressed. And he comes out dressed. And I went, "Mike, [ __ ] you got on?" "Where you going, man? What is this?" "This is my suit." "So what, what you dressed like Captain Crunch, folk? Where you going with all these balls on your shoulder?" "Military." "We going to church, man. You got one stripe on one leg." I said, "Well, yo, sue at, man. We black people. We wear suits, ties. This is all I got." "Steve, this jacket is $20,000." I'm going, "What?" Dude was spending money on stuff. So I'm laughing at him. So we go get in the car. He said, "Man, this is great, man. Is it, are they good? Do they have a great choir, man? They'd be jamming." So, so we get down off the 10 and we turn on Crenshaw. And it's cars from the 10 all the way down Crenshaw, all of Jefferson, apps, you people all on the side. "Where's Michael?" I'm going, "What the hell?" I said, "Mike, I thought I told you and tell nobody." I never opened my mouth. Well, the preacher told somebody Michael was coming. And the word got out. Let me tell you something, man. It was people from Belgium, Argentina, Amsterdam, signs from everywhere. People from all over the world flew in to see this guy go to church. So we finally took us a long time to get through all the crowds and stuff. Police escorts, got everybody out the way. We get to the church. It's packed. This Easter. It's a regular Sunday. It's Easter in here, man. It's packed. So before the service start, I get him in the back with the preacher. Chip Mary. Chip Mary prayed for Michael. He told us to Mike, "You gonna walk away from this. He said, God knows what you did. You're good, brother. You ain't good." And he was so worried. He prayed for him. Mike said, "Man, he says, I'm gonna walk away." So that's what you could just these people. He taught God all time with this black church, man. So we went and they had a seat for us in the middle. And we sat down. Bought his choir came out and they were jamming. And Mike's hair was in his eyes. And Mike was just sitting there just rocking, man. He was getting it, man. He said, "This is great, man. This is great." Oh my God, what are they doing? Phil.

He knew every instrument, man. They went from an A-flat to an E-flat. "This is amazing! What you heard?" "I don't know, dawg. He was in that, man." "Oh my god, why are those people jumping up and down?" "I said, 'Hey, shouting for what?'" "Well, probably 'cause you're here." "It was funny, man. So the whole church service, he was just rocking, man. He loved it."

And so he went, he said, "I want to meet with kids." And man, basement full of kids. They were asking Michael questions. "Is that your hair? Can I touch your face?" Michael's just letting him touch him and everything. So it's news reporters outside. "Where's my phone at, man? It's my phone." Anyway, I got pictures of the news conference and everything. So Mike says, "I don't want to talk to anybody. Steve, go out there and talk for me." "I say, 'Ain't no problem. Got the right one.'" "Look, man, microphones, man. I mean, everywhere. Everybody was there."

"Steve, we want to talk to Michael." "He ain't coming out. Not happening, you know?" "Hey, well, Steve, we want to talk." "And say, 'Man, Mike said he ain't coming out, and he wants me to talk for him.'" I go out in front of all the mics. "Steve, where's Michael?" "We don't talk about Mike. Ain't coming out." "We have questions for Mike." "I said, 'Mike told me to answer all the questions, so go ahead.'"

"Why did he come to church?" "I say, 'You know, he liked church music.'" "Why did he pick this church?" "He said, 'He didn't. I did. I told him which one to come to.'" "Well, when's he coming out?" "I said, 'When he come out, we're gonna get straight in the car.'" "We don't want to talk to you. We won't talk to Mike." "I say, 'Man, tell you no [ __ ] mo. Mike ain't coming out here.'"

"Now, we ain't in the church right now. So y'all..." And you know, this, this me back in the day, before I had all these shows, I had nothing to lose, dawg. I'm lighting their ass up, and I'm aggravated 'cause the dude don't want to talk to me. I'm going with them. I'm all you gonna get.

"So what is Michael doing now?" "He's talking to the..." "I said, 'He's talking to the kids.'" "About what? Why are they allowing children in the basement with Michael?" "I said, 'Hold on, man. Where are you going with this, hill?'" "I said, 'What's it?'" "I say, 'Press conference over.'" So I go in the back. So we talk with the kids. Long time. Michael says, "Steve, I'm ready to go." "I said, 'All right, man.'"

So I told security, "Go get the car. Bring it around." We're walking out there to get an umbrella for Mike and all this here. We walk to the car and we get in the car. I say, "Mike, listen, man. It's people all the way down here. I just want to shake their hand." "I said, 'Mike, you can't shake these people's hand, dawg. You know where we at? We Crenshaw. This ain't what we finna do.'"

So Mike's sitting over there, and this ass rolled the window down. He over there by himself. He rolled the window down, man. These people were reaching them and tying his clothes off. "Oh yeah, they're pulling me in." "I said, 'Roll your window up, shut up, all that grinding and [ __ ]. Mike, can you roll your window up? You're gonna crush that hand then [ __ ] that hand.'" But I got that window up, and this dude's hand was caught in the window. He said, "It's so..." Now the car picking up speed, and the dude is running with his hand crushed in the window. Real thriller.

So Mike's saying, "Steve, stop the car. He's gonna get hurt, man." "[ __ ] him. We all gonna get hurt if we don't get out of here." So I told dude, "Speed up, man." So the driver sped up, and I opened the window just a little bit, and he got his hand out. He said, "Steve, you were gonna drag the poor man." "I said, 'Didn't I tear your ass not to open the window? [ __ ] is your fault.'" "Mike, he said, 'You're crazy.'" "He's just talking to me. So crazy. So I'm trying to save your ass. You don't know how to fight." "And he'll tell, 'Like they're tearing my clothes off. What is your ass [ __ ]? You think they gonna do?'"

So we get all the way back to the hotel, and they take us through the back. And Mike just stepped in some gum somewhere. So we on the elevator, and he raised his foot up, and his gum down from his foot down to the floor. He said, "Steve, there's gum on my [ __ ]." "I said, 'And what the [ __ ] I'm supposed to do?'" "I said, 'Mike, I don't get gum off nobody's shooting, but it's on my shoe now.'" Security, they up there laughing their ass off 'cause nobody talked to Mike like that. "Put his gum on my shoe. What the [ __ ] I supposed to do? Rub that [ __ ] off." The elevator opening, them two damn mopeds. It's awesome, man. We ain't got time for this [ __ ]. Let's walk down here.

[Laughter] That's election. True story. I can't let you go because you spoke about your wife and how from the financial standpoint and bringing peace, but she's also changed your style. Yeah. We, we, we, we can't go because I see my man Ellie's here. We gotta acknowledge that. He, the transformation in the Steve Harvey. Said, "We went from the big suits." Yeah. "You couldn't tell me nothing. You couldn't tell me nothing. I was clapping in the classic hairline, bruh. If you look at them suits, every NBA player from Magic Johnson to Michael Jordan had them suits. That was a treasure, dog. They said, 'Man, we used to watch the Apollo to see what you was wearing, and we get it made.'" Michael, all of them, they all know that. They always come. Man, them suits, man. Yeah. It was, I was king of the urban wear.

But you've transitioned now. Oh, yeah. At a later stage, and now it's fine fashion. Yeah. It's, it's gotten to the point now, it's like, I think like people are looking just to see what you're wearing again. Yeah. But in the social media world, it's like, like they're turning it into a comedy at some in some places, but other people looking like, "Yo, who's, who's dressing this dude 'cause he's fly?" Yeah. See the haters. How was that transition? Well, Marjorie, if you watched my wife over the years, she's just, she's it, man. She's a fast fashionista. And it started with her when she said, "Stephen, won't you change your suits?" And I said, "Why?" She said, "Because I'm tired of being married to a pimp." And I said, "Well, I'll be damned. You have no problem." She said, "Well, I just had to get you married first." She said, "I was gonna change you the whole long." So she got a couple of tailors, and I started wearing some little Canali, Keaton suits and stuff like that, and it was going okay. And then I, I got this guy. When I got to talk show and all this here, and I wanted to have a certain look. I'm a game show host, I'm a talk show host. I wanted to be more mainstream. So she took all the big suits off of me, and she cut the suits down. But I was one-note, man, because that was the image I just wanted out there. Game show host, TV host, tie, collar bar, clamp, cufflinks, pocket square, necktie, colors, shoes, gators. That was it. And that went for a long time. The reputation on Family Feud was, "He dressed so nice." And all the people have come on Family Feud would try to wear two pocket squares because they thought it was two pocket squares. There's really only one. I just wore Tom Ford pocket squares that had a border. Once you have a pocket square with a border on it, when you pull the middle out and put the border, it looks like it's two. So that was a little trick move I did, right? I was going along with that.

And then, um, I went to Africa, uh, four years ago. And, uh, I started taping the show. I had a problem with the guy. He couldn't make the trip. He had some family issues. So my wife had been telling me about Ellie. She said, "Steve, you really ought to hire this kid. He's very, very talented in fashion, and you need to freshen up your look." And I said, "Babe, I don't need all that." You know, and plus, I had seen Ellie a few times with Wynton and Lloyd. They were friends, and, you know, I just didn't think nothing of it, you know? But every time they got dressed, they was calling him, "What do I wear? What do I do?" And so when the dude didn't couldn't make it to Africa, she called Ellie and said, "What are you doing?" And he told her. Now, Ellie had designed something for me, some pajama sets with Dolce & Gabbana before that. I flew him out to L.A. to show me these designs. He designed these cold sets for me, and they were just outstanding. So she called him and said, "What are you doing?" She said, "He said, 'I'm off right now.'" She said, "Get on the plane and come to Africa." Now, this is Marjorie. She don't play. So the next evening, he shows up in Africa. Well, the guy that wasn't making it made it. He had the dinner. Too awkward moment. Now we go to the dinner at this restaurant in Africa, this beautiful restaurant called The Saint. And the only seat available at the table, they sitting next to each other. This was awkward. This wasn't, this was a very awkward moment, man. This was. And so one thing led to another. The brother had to go home for family reasons, so Ellie stayed. And that was the first time, uh, the first season of Family Feud, he was starting to style me. And I was going, "Yo, man."

So he says, "Oh, you're not wearing a pocket square today?" And I went, "What are you nuts? No pocket square. Who, who do you think you're dressing?" And he says, "You. We don't have to match. We're going to color block." "What you mean, we infinite match? We're nothing to match?" "What? No, we fit the match, partner. I'm from Cleveland. You know, my gators got to be the same color as my hat, and my gators got to match my belt. I don't know what you're talking about." "These are rules." "So that's old." So he started dressing me and color blocking and doing all this stuff. I wasn't really happy with it, but, you know, when I come out to dressing room, all, all my sons, "Dad, oh, that's dope." And I was going, "Man, this ain't that dope." And, you know, it got home, so it worked out for us. And then I just noticed he was super organized. He was, he took better, took such great care to close. And then he started showing me stuff. "Mr. Harvey, look at this. This is coming out. This is going to be the new collection." "I had never seen this in my life. What do you mean, new collection? Stuff getting the stoves." "That's what I buy. Stefano Ricci, a little bit of Tom Ford, about some Key Time." "No, no, no, no. This is what we're gonna do."

And so I got this show called Facebook Watch after that, and they said they don't want me to dress like I normally dress. "Would you wear your regular clothes?" Now, my regular clothes were different than my image was. So he would go in the closet and start putting stuff together. Then he just started saying, "Let me, let me buy some stuff and bring it to you." So he would go out and shop and bring stuff to the house, and I would look at it. I was fighting him all the way. He said, "No, Mr. Harvey, but you got to try it on. We got to have a fitting." I used to hate when he said, "We would have a fitting." And then, you know, he said, "Then one day he really pissed me off because the last year he was in Africa." He said, "Mr. Harvey, you need to lose some weight. You are making these fashions look ridiculous." I went, "Oh, you little skinny [ __ ]? You're sitting up in here looking like a Somalian, and you're trying to tell me I need to lose some weight? Can you tell me I need to lose some weight? Oh, okay, cool." Kind of pissed me off. My wife said, "He might be right."

[Laughter] Now, when your wife say it, then you, I got to get my ass in the gym. Gotta get some of this weight off. And then on Facebook Watch two years ago, he started dressing me the way we just started doing some different stuff. He said, "Mr. Harvey, what's the one thing you really want to do?" I said, "I want my colors back. I used to wear colors on Kings of Comedy. That's what I miss." He says, "But we have to change your fit." He started narrowing down the shoulders, narrowing down the sleeves. I was against all of this. "Change your fit, Mr. Harvey. You now don't have the weight, you can wear the clothes better." And color blocking and blah, blah, blah. And then it just took off. And it started happening a few years ago on Facebook Watch. And then he did a special order on, um, NFL Honors, and that took off. And then the guy who runs NFL Honors works for Celebrity Family Feud, and called him up and said, "Hey, man, you should let Steve Harvey dress on Celebrity Family Feud the way he does on NFL Honors." So they, because I used to have to wear the same suit on Celebrity Family Feud because they didn't know what order he was going. So I just wore the same suit. When they did that, I told Ellie, "Do your thing." And then he just started setting stuff out. And next thing you know, he said, "Mr. Harvey, let me take your picture." Which is the one thing I hate sitting up for a picture. I don't like looking at cameras, smiling and stuff like that. So he said, "Just look." I saw most of my pictures, I'm looking down or something, got a cigar or something. He was taking pictures, and then he would start posting it. And by accident, next thing you know, man, "Fashion Problem Daily," and boom, people started picking it up. And I was going, "What's going on?" Because it was never my intention. You know, I just wanted to, I didn't want to hear my wife's mouth no more. That's all it was, for her to be quiet. But this kid, Ellie, is such an innovative dude, and he understands how I am, and he don't bring stuff that don't fit my body. Because still, all in all, man, I'm 65. You dig? You got to let me be comfortable. Skinny jeans is for skinny people, you know? And then we got a couple of rules. I will not wear high-top sneakers with the suit. That good. I'm not gonna do that. Too trendy for you? Yeah, I'm not fitting to do that. I see all these basketball players and stuff. I'm not fitting to do that. I'm not wearing a high-top sneaker with my suit. Now, we got some Stefano Ricci alligator sneakers I had made. I'll wear that with them, but they look, they look dope. Yeah. And we get in a lot of fights because I don't like a lot of the stuff, but to give him credit, he's right 90% of the time. And but when it comes to fashion, man, the dude just said, "Mr. Harvey, I'm going to let you be you. I'm going to introduce you to these looks." And he introduced them. Some of it worked. I'll put on some stuff and love. And he'll go, "You're not wearing that." And I'll be going, "What the hell? I ain't." "Well, I don't want my name on it then." That's when I know I look like a fool, you know? But it turned out to be a great relationship, man. You know, I think it's done a lot for his recognition, really more so than mine, because for me, it's an, it's an added, like, an accident. But for him, it's career-changing because this is truly what he does. And I think what's going to happen is, I think this dude is going to be, he's going to end up, before it's over, he won't always work for me because that's not how I do people. I expect me to be a stepping stone for most people, like Chad and them cats like that. He's going to be one of the top fashion designers in the world. He, he will be what Virgil was. He will be what Virgil was. You heard it. He heard his head first. That's not for real. Once somebody understand it, yeah, he will be what Virgil was. And Virgil was a bad boy. Yeah. Absolutely.

Before we leave, I know you want to talk about your NFT project. You got an NFT project that dropped, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got monkeys. And how you feel about that? Because I know you old school. So to be in a new world of NFTs, that's, that's a whole new school. You know, you just have to listen, man. To Beatty bought this to me because I'm telling you, it was a tough sell for me. NFTs, what are you talking about? Um, Mr. Harvey, buy this monkey. Because for me, it's just a little stupid ass face, right? I buy the monkey, and next thing you know, I'm in the magazine, I'm everywhere. And I'm sitting up here going, "Betty, explain this to me." Because he has to help me. But one of the things about being successful, man, is you have to surround yourself with people that's smarter than you. You hear the saying all the time, "If you're the smartest person in your group, you need a new group, dog." I, I got a new group because I don't know everything. But these NFTs have been so interesting to me, how to be a part of it and participated and get on the ground floor. Say it out loud. But that's for me. If I can own something, that's the deal for me. It's not gonna change. This new judge show is like such a jump for me, man, because it's like, I finally got one. I created this IP. You know, there's never been a judge show on primetime television ever, ever, dog. That's original. That's an IP. I thought of it. It's my show. I'm the star, and I own it. Now, with the numbers that this show was getting on ABC, or trust and believe, this one right here, this, this, this judge show, God willing, this, as my brothers say in the Middle East, Inshallah, if this, this pops off, when, when, when this pops off, as God's will, this will be the one that I can ride off into the sunset in. This will be the biggest thing I've ever done. This is complete ownership. I'm the executive producer, I'm the owner, I'm the star, the creator. What's going to shock him though, and I'm not gonna say it on camera, what's gonna shock him is the next move I make with the judge show. It's gonna be paramount. And you can look for us on the global level. You can expect to see some studios in the Middle East. You can expect to see some studios in Africa. And Steve Harvey Global, Steve Harvey, Middle East, UAE, Middle East, Africa. The conversations I'm having around the world, man, by the grace of God, because he put all this in my imagination, brother. The sky's the limit. And, uh, all I need for God to do is, I just need, uh, 39 more years. I just need 39 more years. That's a long time. 39 years, a long time. I'm gonna live to 104, and then I'm gonna push all the chips up to the window and cash it in. But I'm gonna be on the boat, pimping so hard, I swear to God, man. Next time y'all interview me, it'll be on a yacht in the middle of the Mediterranean. I'm gonna fly y'all out for it. We're gonna spend two days out there smoking cigars and drinking, uh, a lychee martini. A lychee martini. Has you ever heard of that? That's my favorite. That's what you drink. I haven't. That's my favorite martini. Martini. That's the vibe. Yeah. I had one last year. I ain't know what it was.

[Applause] And when they showed it to me, before they peeled it, they had all them spines. Ain't nobody eating that. They peeled it off, made a martini. Yeah, it's good. Oh, man. You had one? Real quick, where you getting them at? Oh, New York, in the restaurants. Oh, you're in New York? Yeah. Not in Georgia. You get a barbecue martini down here with a little gravy on it because you in Georgia. Down here, pardoning these. There's some areas down here where gravy is actually a beverage. Gravy shaking. That's dirt. Nice.

It's been, it's been a pleasure, bro. This is actually probably our longest episode, but it just seemed like it was just like, could last forever because so much information. And I'm personally appreciative because I learned from actually asking questions, just like our audience does. So a lot of the questions I was asking you because I personally wanted to know myself, to not make mistakes and know how to maneuver. And that's what it's really about, mentorship. So I appreciate you taking the time out of your schedule. It was good, man, because I watch y'all. Y'all deep brothers, man. What y'all trying to do is educate. And the more people you help become successful, the more successful you become. That's what people don't understand, man. You got to take some time to share the knowledge. You know, it's like, uh, I went to Robert Smith's house. Tell you a quick story. The billionaire. And the story is, you got 30 minutes. No one gets more than 30 minutes of his time, period. I was told that. I didn't got a jet on a flew to Austin to his house. Cool for 30 minutes, man. Do you know how bad I wanted to sit with this man? To get a jet and go somewhere for a 30-minute meeting? Then the lady explained to me, "At 30 minutes, when I walk up, if he does that, that means give him five more minutes." At 30 minutes, that lady walked right in that room, and he did like that. I said, "Well, I got five more minutes." And I sat there, and we talked. She came back in, he did like that. She walked away. She came back again, he did like that. She didn't come back no more. I was at Robert Smith's house for seven hours. I was leaving his house, and I asked his, the lady who runs it, I said, "Can I ask you a question? I said, 'I was expecting to leave in 30 minutes, 40 minutes.'" I said, "Why was I in this man's house for seven hours?" She said, "You know why, Steve?" She said, "Because you're the first person that sat with him for 20 minutes and ain't asking for no money." She said, "So the question is, why don't you ask the man for no money?" Because he was waiting. I said, "Because I didn't want to ask for no money. I want to learn how he made that money." See, I want to be a billionaire. So what I needed from him was information. The biggest thing Robert Smith taught me was to scale up. Everything you're saying, Steve, scale it. You want to bring 300 boys to your ranch? How do you bring 3,000 to your ranch? You bring 3,000. How do you bring 30,000? You want to change 30,000 lives? How you change 300,000 lives? He taught me that valuable lesson. And me and Robert Smith, we've been friends ever since, man. And when he gave that money to Morehouse and paid off all them loans, do you know he meets with them brothers once a month? He meets with them once a month. I was on the yacht for my birthday. He called me, says, "Steve, need you to join this call with me on Thursday night, man." "Ain't no problem." On got, got on the lunch with him. Said he got in on the Zoom call with him. He had about 40, 50 of them cats on the line, set online. And all I did was give them information about the mindset you have to have for success. You got to get your mind wrapped around this thing, man. If you don't get this here, you got to have successful thought. Everything I think is big, and everything I try to think is positive. Now, I'm human. I have my days, you know, when I have doubts, and I'm, I'm human. But right after that, whenever I think something ain't working, I do two things. I start thinking of, I get grateful, and I immediately go into prayer. I get grateful, and then I just say, "Okay, God, I thank you for what all you've done for me. Let me just shut up and cool out." And then I go into prayer. And, and dog, what I have now is because of that. It's not because, like, I'm the funniest cat out there. You know, somebody asked me one time, "You think you that funny?" I don't know. I know enough people do. I got about, I got 100 million people willing to give me a dollar. I made a few hundred million. Now, you might not think I'm funny, but I don't really need you to make it though. Do it. There's a whole lot of people hating on y'all, but you don't need one of them. That's a fact. You know, the fact that I ain't never heard now, want a little baby's records. I wouldn't know a little baby song. He'll need me. ASAP Rocky. He got Rihanna. What do you need me?

[Laughter] I said, "ASAP Rocky? I wouldn't rock it the hell if I know her. ASAP Rocky? I don't even know what he'd do." I ain't got to know none of that, man. Dog, I was that, I was that dumb ass dude in 1977 when hip hop, hippity hop, when that came out. It was my last year of college. I heard that song. I was at a dance. I said, "Man, this, this [ __ ] ain't gonna last. I don't know what hip hop. This ain't gonna last. This will never make it. They ain't even singing. There's no way this'll make it." I bought in my life. I can, I can tell you the hip-hop albums I bought. I bought *All Eyes on Me* by Tupac. I bought *Death Certificate* by Ice Cube. I bought Jay-Z's *Blueprint*. Classic. I bought Petey Pablo's *Diary of a Sinner*. Interesting. Interesting. Dog, that's one of my favorite. You can't talk to me. I mean, you was going, it was just, yeah. I was a classic, classic, classic. Tupac? No. Ice Cube? No. J? Petey Pablo? No. Yeah. Yeah. It fell off. It fell off. I know. And then that song he got, uh, "I was scraping up change in an ashtray, two cigarettes, not a dime to my name." But man, it's a song about gratitude, okay? It's a song about, man, where he, it was his darkest moments, and he just didn't know how he was gonna make it. But when he said, "I was down to a cigarette, scraping up change in the ashtray," that was me. That's you. I play that song in my dressing room all the time. Petey Pablo, *Diary of a Sinner*. Y'all don't quit talking to me. I played that for my son. My son said, "Who is this country ass dude? What are we listening to?" I'm sitting up here, I'm shocked. You don't know Petey Pablo, dog? Went to prison, came out. I told y'all, everybody have it, but y'all wouldn't listen to me. Now you got to see it popping off, got you in the club dancing your ass off. Shake it down, shake it down. Siri, come on, man. I already know. Y'all shouldn't have been here. Y'all supposed to be hip hop. Face number five? What's number five? That's four. What's five? Five, who? The other album? Okay, Petey Pablo, *Blueprint*, *Death Certificate*, *All Eyes on Me*. Got one more. And, uh, uh, uh, uh, Outkast, *Speakerboxxx*. Cigarette blow. Oh, yeah. That is that double album? Yeah, that was cold. That was coke. That seeing them when they wrote, uh, "Ain't nobody dope as me, I'm just so fresh and clean." Yeah, like you're in that video, right? Like Kiki, mine, like Showtime at the Apollo, minus the Kiki Shepard. Yeah. When they released that, they came to the beat in L.A., and I played it on my radio station. And Big Boi said, "Wrote this for you." And he played that line, "Ain't nobody dope as me, I'm just so fresh and clean, like Showtime at the Apollo, minus the Kiki Shepard." Well, who else out there? "Ain't nobody left for me." After that, you couldn't say [ __ ] to me. Yeah, that's number one. Number one selling hip-hop album of all time because of me. Number one. Yes. Not for one reason. No, no. I kid you not. Them the five albums I bought. But hip-hop don't need me. Look how many hours. It's the biggest music genre ever created in the world. And Steve Harvey ain't bought the five of their albums. What they need me for? So when people ask me, man, "You think you're the funniest?" I don't need you to think I'm funny, man. You ain't [ __ ]. You wasn't the funniest ones in the King. I had to be. I was on the Kings. You take me off, and it ain't no Kings. You take Bernie off, ain't no Kings. You take Ced, Dale, see, like if I had, you ain't asked me this, but that's pride right there. That's the reason. If I had a Mount Rushmore of comedy, yeah, first of all, Pryor is a mountain by himself, okay? He don't, he don't, you can't put him on this rock. He's a chiseled whole plateau rock, taller than the mountain. Eddie Murphy gets a plaque alone. Yes. Legend. Yes. Eddie get a whole plaque by himself. Yes. You can't touch Eddie when it comes to comedy. Who? No, Delirious, Raw, and then everything Saturday Night Live. Buckwheat. No, he's just, yeah. Eyes feed times of Mayday, dawg. Are you talking about somebody sitting there on Saturday Night Live crying? I'm telling my dog, I would go home and cry watching Buckwheat and Velvet Jones, the pimp, and all this hell. Eddie got a rock by himself. Yeah. For me, that Mount Rushmore, that was full out. Outside of that, what we got? Defoe? Yeah. Chris Rock. Okay. Okay. Legend. Dave Chappelle. Yes. Legend. Yes. Now, it's hard because I know, I know some things people don't know. Bill Cosby was the most prolific stand-up of all time. 20 comedy albums. Ain't nobody done that, dawg. This dude right here was masterful. But if you say something about Bill, right? Yeah. About how could you? Like, people ask me all the time, "How could you be friends with Bill Cosby?" Well, hell, I ain't know what happened. You know, you know, they took all this money from Bill Cosby, took his names off all these buildings. Ain't nobody gave that money back though. You know why? You, what he was. So I would want to put him there. But if I had to put the new school in there, it had to be Kevin Hart. So that's the four. That's the three. Three. Oh, so we're not putting Bill. Okay. So we got three. We got one more. And one more. The last spot. The Kings of Comedy is a plaque all together. Yes, sir. No more. No. I was just thinking. That's Ahmad Lawrence is the most. My loss is the most. What have I said about Martin? Martin Lawrence is the, the best mimicker I've ever been around in my life. What he did on Def Jam was unthinkable. He's the best mimicker. The most talented, versatile stand-up ever born on this planet was Jamie Foxx. Jamie Foxx. Another one. No, no. You, I'm, but I'm telling you, but, but we, we can't put everybody on this road. Now, I'm impartial because I'm one of the Kings. But I know what the Kings did for Black comedy, right? Right. Right. I know what it was, man. It launched. You can ask Kevin. You, it launched a, a Kevin Hart. Now, there's no Katt Williams. There's no Kevin. There's no, there's no none of these dudes. Earthquake, who is a bad boy. You know, Bill Bellamy, Adele Givens, Monique, Samora, uh, man, Teddy Carpenter, Damon Wayans. It's some boys. J. Anthony Brown. Man, the first night, the first week of Def Jam on the stage, in one night, was Martin Lawrence, all Little Wayne's Bros, Jamie Foxx, Bill Bellamy, Bernie Mac, Shirley Underwood, Steve Harvey, Cedric the Entertainer, J. Anthony Brown, Teddy Carpenter, Adele Givens. Dog, that stage with some, no genre bred more still living talented people than Def Jam. Because Tucker was on that part of the junction. Tucker was on that stage. This boy, see, you can't, that, that genre right there was nothing else but that Mount Rushmore for me because I know what the Kings was, man. It was, it was like, still the highest grossing. It's just so, it's something that ain't, ain't nobody fitting to do that. You can get four. Like, I love these boys at 85 South. They're doing something, man. I never thought would be done. That's why I got to take my hat off to him because I don't know how they did this, man. They actually go on stage in the living room setting and sit around and talk and sell out and the [ __ ] is funny. They, they've taken improv comedy to a whole another level. Yeah, like live conversations. Yeah, they're different. We sat, we did that show just after the show, we're just like, "How did they just do that?" Don't do they just play it? They're so, you don't realize it like as it's happening, you're like, "Did this just happen?" I didn't think that could work. I tried to improv comedy. I can't do it. Then I don't understand dividing the check. That's what always threw me. Going to get this check, and we're going to split it. Now I got to do this myself. But 85 South has came along, Chico and Mancia and DC and them boys, and they special, man. They changed the way comedy could be done. So my hat's off to them young boys right there, man, because I just, I didn't think it could work. But once again, it wasn't in my imagination. It was in theirs. So that's my view, man.

So you have to write your own jokes to be top tier, or does that not matter? Yeah, but then, you know, like the, like Chappelle and Rock, you know, they have writers, you know, but they doing some high-level stuff. It's, it's time-consuming. Like, if I went back, I'd have to go that route. I spent my whole career writing my own. I bought two jokes in 30 years. You said bought them? Bought two jokes for writers. Yeah. Off of a writer. I bought a funeral joke from Prescott. It's a comedian out of Memphis. I bought a funeral joke from Prescott, and I bought something else from Prescott. I don't remember that joke, but I bought it. And then didn't use it, right? But that funeral joke that I never put on tape, one of the funniest pieces I've ever gotten. It was just, you know, going to a black funeral. And, yeah, you know, and then I, you know, like, you know, funeral homes, like back in the day, some, we lived in the hood, you had to take the body to the funeral home, they didn't do pickups. So my uncle died, and, uh, we came home, and he was dead, and we had to take him to the funeral home. Now, me and my nephew, we ten, and my mom and daddy in the front, and they propped my uncle up in the back, sitting him up, and they put us on each side so he wouldn't fall over. You know how [ __ ] traumatized I was, man? We make a left turn, this [ __ ] he owed me. He owed me. You shut up and leave my brother quick pushing him. You know how hard it is to ride with your first dead person, and you, and your brother is booking, is trying to prop his ass up? Look at that. Brains. You need therapy after that [ __ ]. You got to go to therapy. You know, I wrote a whole joke about that, taking him up there, and took the suit down there for the funeral director to dress him in and everything. We get to the funeral, and we open up the casket, and my uncle ain't got the suit on. He got on a Michael Jordan jogging suit with number two and three. Yeah. That [ __ ] was one of the greatest jokes. Oh, man. I never put that on tape, man. But I was wondering if I came back, I'd have to release that NFT. Releasing that NFT. Yeah. One of the first, one of the first actually endorsed and speak about Solana as Tabitha. I'm sure he's behind that, man. You explain how that would work. The joke on the internet, how you would put it as an NFT. Yeah. So I first, I would do it like as a, I would record it, right? And then make it a digital product and make it exclusive to the people who bought. Maybe create artwork around it and make it exclusive to the people. And then after they bought it, perhaps make it, uh, a one-night-only where you actually perform. If they have that NFT, they get a whole big business around it. They buy it in crypto, they can resell it. Every time they resell it, you get a percentage. Percentage on it. To me, it's like, "Wait, that's it, man. You know how much of that stuff I got?" Hey, man, do you know I have footage? I have at least 16 hours of never recorded. I'm talking about because I, when I did my seven specials, man, and and feature films for stand-up, I only picked the best hour, ten. I've got some stuff that never got recorded. The funeral joke, the Jerry Springer bit, the Waffle House joke. I got some [ __ ] man that was so gut-wrenching funny, man. I just haven't had time to go through all of it. I got a lot of the footage, but yeah, this would be the time for it. I mean, obviously, I'm gonna hook up with y'all and do something, man. I'm gonna do a business venture with y'all too. All right, let's do it. Let's go do it. Y'all gotta get with Beatty, and y'all gotta come up with our idea, and we gotta do the three of us gotta do a business venture together. Let's do it and launch it. Take my radio show, use it as the nucleus to promote, and then, uh, whatever social media I got, and then we need to get out there, and we can do something big, man. We can promote on our side too. Yeah, yeah. Y'all, y'all strong seeing it. Whatever y'all trying to do in Africa, if y'all trying to go, however that work, I got, yeah, we'll talk about that. We got some, some investment opportunities out there. I got a studio for you in Abu Dhabi, you know the deal. And I'm talking about where you can go, man. Like when you go to Abu Dhabi, man, you won't even believe it. You've never been nowhere on Earth like this. You, you, you know what it's like to walk outside and not have to look around? That's like I was when, um, Singapore. And Singapore, that was like the most immaculate place that I've been to. Like it was just no poverty, nothing on the street. Look like I was in the future. Like it was like that was just like, I never been there. Oh, it's crazy. You know, when you go on a plane, so I was in, I was coming from Hong Kong. And when you go on the plane, you know how they give you those things to read, but nobody ever really reads it. Like I actually read it this time. It said, "Drug trafficking of any kind is punishable by death." So then I get there, and then my friend who was with his cousin actually was living out there, so she was telling us like, "There's no drugs. Like they're serious about that." Really? No drugs? Don't even try it. See, it's like there's no drugs out there. But it was like, I'm like, because it's like one of the most expensive places to live. And she was like, "Yeah, but everybody works." And she's like, "Even like low-income housing, it's like just a regular apartment. Like there's no poverty, there's no ghettos, there's no crime, there's no, none of that." And it looked like we was in the future. What language is over there? Uh, well, everybody spoke English. Because really, yeah. I forget what their like native language is. Yeah. Somebody was telling me to go to Singapore, but I kept thinking the five core pencils.

But we, we can't leave without talking about, I think, which is probably the sixth principle, and that's to give back. Let's talk about your foundation, the philanthropy work that you're doing. Well, um, I've been doing this for quite some time, Steve and Marjorie Harvey Foundation, but it's about to take a new turn, man. I'm in the process of closing the deal, um, to buy Rock Ranch. And Rock Ranch is owned by Chick-fil-A right now, and it's, uh, 1600 acres. Where's it at? Uh, just south of here. Okay. It's about an hour and a half from here in, uh, is it Rock, Georgia? And it's called The Rock Ranch, and it's 1,600 acres. I'm gonna buy it myself, donate it to my foundation because I don't want my foundation to have to take that type of hit. It's a lot of money to buy. But this is going to give me a chance to do what Robert Smith taught me to do, was to scale up. And so what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna build permanent housing on it. Because right now, when I go down there, I got to spend hundreds of thousands on tents for the boys to sleep in. I gotta, I gotta have, uh, toilets brought in and showers bought in. And, uh, I just want to change it and really, really go all out with it. We're gonna build, uh, sleeping for 700 kids, boys and girls, with indoor toilets and showers for everybody. We're gonna have a performing arts center that seats 700 with theater seating in it to show movies and do presentations for corporate getaways. I'm gonna build about 15 tiny houses on it for corporate exec getaways to come down there. I've got fishing ponds all over the place, got rock climbing, zip lining. I'm gonna open up the STEM center. Robert Smith has committed to opening that for me. I'm gonna open up a STEM coding center to teach coding to young. All this is for underprivileged kids. If your child got money, that ain't who I'm working with. I work for people who can't afford it, man. I'm taking all underprivileged kids there. That's all I'm taking. The ones people don't think got a shot. That was me. Um, I'm gonna, uh, I'm claiming it. I'm gonna open up the Floyd Mayweather Boxing Facility down there. He mentioned it to Floyd. Now, you know, bringing, he had a conversation with Floyd Mayweather. Body, but he a good brother. Every time we see each other, we cordial, but I love his dude. Al Haymon, he a Cleveland boy. I'm gonna go to, uh, I'm gonna go to Floyd and I'm gonna ask him to build a gym for these boys. I'm just putting it out there. I'm claiming it. Um, I'm building the, uh, Tyler Perry Performing Arts Center. The Robert Smith Coding Center. I want to build. Here's another one that I'm putting out there. I'm gonna build the Shaquille O'Neal Gymnasium. Shaquille is a good brother, man. Just a good brother, man. And I like being affiliated with people that's good dudes, man, that I know got their heart in the right place. Uh, you know, it, I just claim stuff like that, you know? But if they understand that I don't put my money in it, these cats is willing to give. They have a lot of give-back spirit in them, you know? And, uh, I'm gonna open up a, I'm gonna put a track down there. I'm gonna open up a gardening facility. I'm gonna sell flowers. I'm gonna take 200 acres and grow flowers down there and raise honey with the bees. And I'm gonna open up a farming. I'm gonna find me an African-American farmer that got hit doing the pandemic and lost a farm. I'm gonna give him farming acreage down there, a few hundred acres, and I'm just gonna pay him to grow organic vegetables. I'm gonna feed the community, and whoever needs vegetables that live in that area, I'm gonna just feed them for free and let this brother earn a living from farming. And, uh, I'm gonna open up a dining hall. I'm gonna have a facility there when I'm not using it, I can rent it out for, uh, corporate events and for weddings and things like that. I'm also gonna open up the gym and create it in a way where if HBCUs want to come down there and have camps, they can come down there, uh, doing, as long as it's not summer, and whole camps, training facilities. And I'm gonna have a Division I workout center built for, uh, football teams who wanna come down there. I'm gonna go to the NFL and get them to build me a football field with AstroTurf. And I'm gonna go to the NBA. If Shaq don't come through, I'm gonna go to the NBA. I'm gonna have them build me a gym. If they don't do it, I'll do it myself. Don't make me no different. I hope they do, but it don't matter to me. I'm not in the big business. I'll ask you, but I won't beg you. And then, uh, that's what God didn't put on my heart. So that's where we're going with, uh, philanthropy. And my wife's goal and our goal is to send 10,000 young people to college, full-paid scholarships. We're on our way. We've done a hundred or so right now, but we're a long way from 10,000, but that's the goal. I'll say this, we definitely want to help in any way that we can help in that. So I'm gonna have y'all come down there and teach a course. Yeah. Let's do it. For sure. That's what I want y'all to do. That'll be dope. We definitely will do that. So thank you, man. Yeah, Steve, it's been a, been a pleasure, my brother. Been real. Black. Appreciate you, man. I appreciate you, man. I appreciate y'all. Let me, let me speak like this. Most people don't come at me like this. I don't get to say these types of things, so I appreciate it. Thank you. I appreciate you more. Thank you guys for rocking. Before we go, we got to give thanks again, uh, to be making sure that this happened. Uh, shout out to Nicole, uh, our Black Effect family for also making sure that this took place. So thank y'all. And I want to highlight, he's talking about it, but I think it's important to really say this on camera. So he talked about his lawyer, he talked about his stylist, he talked about the video, who helps him out a lot. Financial issues, and they're all young Black men. And that's important too. Like he has a staff and a team of, um, Black professionals. He didn't have to compromise the entire lifetime. We think we have to compromise the integrity if we hire somebody. Like he didn't compromise the integrity of people extremely highly qualified. Um, and that's something to highlight, just like, like LeBron, you know, different things that nature. But it's always good to see, you know, a team of, of Black people, especially Black men, yeah, working together. So, and they qualified too. Because when I put them boys in the room, I ain't got to be in there because I know they gonna handle bids because they smart. And you, you're gonna run nothing by them, dog. I ain't even worried about it. You can come in there. I, these cats got some lines on them. And like you say, I didn't hire Black people that have to compromise. No, man. I'm actually, I actually, I actually have an edge because, hey, what else it gives me, man? Gives me a comfort level because, you know, man, sometimes, man, when you're out here in this world as an alpha male, it's lonely out here. You're out here operating with people that don't look like you, talk like you. Some of them don't want to really be bothered with you. But you had the ability to make money, so they tolerate you. Well, when I'm home, and I'm sitting around my guys, I want the comfort level. I want to be able to talk like I talk, say what I say. You know, if I fall off a word that ain't politically correct, ain't nobody wincing, writing me up, filling out no paperwork. Hey, dawg, I don't want to say nothing. All of a sudden, I see somebody filling out paperwork. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we have a lot of meetings in my house where HR don't apply.

[Laughter] No. It's a pleasure, my brother. Thank you guys for rocking with us. We'll see you next week. Peace. Peace. Graduates from my school. Being Forbes. Back drop. Back drop. My drop. Back drop.

[Applause] Bye.