This story originally appeared on People.
Steve Harvey is addressing his shocking staff memo that was leaked in May.
The memo, in which the 60-year-old television personality wrote, “Do not come to my dressing room unless invited… Do not approach me while I’m in the makeup chair unless I ask to speak with you directly. Do not take offense to the new way of doing business. It is for the good of my personal life and enjoyment” was leaked by a staff member from Harvey’s Chicago-based talk show.
On Thursday, Harvey met with reporters at the Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills, California, and discussed the memo right off the bat, beginning with a joke about the incident in true Harvey fashion.
“I learned two things from that email … I can’t write and I should never write,” Harvey said, according to Variety. “It was something I wrote a year ago and someone didn’t get a job coming to L.A. and they got pissed.”
His light-heartedness continued: “I thought it was cute. You all didn’t.”
Moving towards a serious note, the Steve host explained that he didn’t recognize the severity of the situation until it made national headlines.
“I was okay until I saw it on CNN and that’s when I know I was in a lot of trouble,” he said. “The email was out there and it wasn’t a big deal to me at all. … I’m not a mean-spirited guy — I’m a very congenial guy to people who know me.”
According to Steve executive producer Shane Farley, only roughly 10 out of 60 staff members from Chicago were making the move to L.A. for the show.
This isn’t the first time, however, that Harvey has spoken out about the leaked note. Near the time of its release in May, Harvey argued that the staff members were “ambushing him,” which gave him a reason to handle it in this particular way.
“I could not find a way to walk from the stage to my dressing room, to sit in my makeup chair, to walk from my dressing room to the stage or to just sit and have lunch without somebody just walking in,” he said. “I’ve always had a policy where, you know, you can come and talk to me — so many people are great around here, but some of them just started taking advantage of it.”
He added: “Look man, I’m in my makeup chair, they walk in the room. I’m having lunch, they walk in, they don’t knock. I’m in the hallway, I’m getting ambushed by people with friends that come to the show and having me sign this and do this. I just said, ‘Wait a minute.’ And in hindsight, I probably should’ve handled it a little bit differently.”
Aside from the daytime talk show, Harvey’s lineup also includes hosting gigs for ABC’s Celebrity Family Feud, NBC’s Little Big Shots and its spinoff series, and is slated to host Fox’s upcoming Showtime at the Apollo revival series.
Steve premieres Sept. 5. and will air on NBC networks.
