Got 2,000 men in 1 building. Season 4 of my show is going to be bigger than ever! #SteveHarvey #SeasonOfSurprises pic.twitter.com/qVZvBMHAvv
— steve harvey (@IAmSteveHarvey) August 16, 2015
Steve Harvey, who has been riding an extraordinary wave of success, which was built on the principles of hard work and dedication to his craft is under a little hot water according to the Chicago Tribune. According to some audience members that attended a special taping of his Steve Harvey daytime talk show on August 16, 2015 at the Oriental Theater in Chicago, the taping took on a tone that was disrespectful to the 150 women in attendance.
With 2000 in the audience to talk focus on the topic of “What Men Really Think,” some attendees are saying that some of the men got out of control and begin to disrespect some of the women.
While WWE star David Otunga, who is married to J Hud, talk show host Geraldo Rivera, Chicago entrepreneur Bill Rancic and reality star Todd Chrisley served as guest panelists, Steve Harvey played the role of host and moderator for the discussion.
Apparently the discussion got a little rowdy as some men in the audience reportedly started shouting and catcalling at the women. Comedian, Tim Dunn, who attended the taping gave a few details of what he witnessed via his Facebook page when he posted the following.
- Over a hundred women were seated onstage, and when they got up to speak they were catcalled. This resulted in the warm-up comic asking the men to stop catcalling, as the vibe in the room had become “too rapey. ”
- When women skyped in to ask Steve for advice, their image was displayed on large screens, which men would either catcall or groan at based on the women’s looks. And like, if you looked at the guys groaning, spending a night with any of these women would be the absolute best night of their lives.
- During a segment about how often men want sex, a young man got up and mentioned that he is sometimes too tired from work to have sex with his girlfriend.
He was immediately booed and had homophobic epithets yelled at him. – During the same segment, a woman got up and described a time when she didn’t want to have sex because she had just finished a tiring road trip. In that time, she was first catcalled, then booed, ending with a man yelling “you haven’t done your duty!” in response to her story. –
To end that segment, Steve said it should be the woman’s decision whether or not to have sex. Only the women onstage, the comedians in our row, and a few other men throughout the theater applauded that statement.
We already know how heated these panels can get when the topic of discussion is centered around politics, race, religion, and in this case relationships and sometimes the actions of a few seem to resonate louder than the actual majority but we don’t know for sure since we were not present.
The show is scheduled to air the episode in two parts September 8,2015 and September 9, 2015 to help kick-off Steve Harvey’s Season 4, which is deemed as a #SeasonOfSurprises. A Steve Harvey Show spokesperson issued the following statement regarding the show to the Chicago Tribune.
“The nature of the topic alone can elicit strong opinions from both men and women. While we always encourage a healthy debate, we do not condone or tolerate rude or disrespectful behavior towards our audience or any of our guests. We are very proud of the episodes that we produced and are confident that our national audience will find the conversation both insightful and entertaining.
” While some audience members felt the tone was disrespectful and spoke out about it, some others said they didn’t feel anything disrespectful occurred at all. I’m sure the taping will be edited as all shows are but I guess we will see what happened on September 8th and 9th.
