How Steve Harvey survived his Miss Universe moment

JUMP

By Steve Harvey

224 pages

Available at National Book Store

In December 2015, Steve Harvey was the most hated man in Colombia, the Philippines and the whole Universe.

  As host of the Miss Universe pageant, he slipped up big-time while reading the names of the runner-up and winner of the beauty pageant. He reversed their order, momentarily selecting Miss Colombia as the winner when the actual winner was Miss Philippines. Confusion and anger ensued.

“The world was eating me alive... In just 48 hours, I had nearly four billion impressions on social media... For five days till Christmas day, it was just horrible. Death threats came. People rode by my house in SUVs, threatening to hurt my family. I could not let my children go anywhere. I had to have armed security guards at my gates. I got cursed out so many ways in Spanish that I thought I knew Spanish. I am certain I can’t vacation in Colombia anytime soon! I probably can’t even drink Colombian coffee,” he said then.

The most hated man of 2015 soon became, for me, a most lovable man as I spent sleepless nights over the past year watching Steve Harvey on very-late-night cable TV, hosting shows like Family Feud and Little Big Shots. Boy, this man is really funny. His facial expressions are capable of showing a whole universe of emotions. And it seems like he has a big heart. I felt this heart jump at me between the pages of his latest book, Jump, which I got from National Book Store.

The struggles Harvey has gone through aren’t funny. But they’re what made him strong and successful. The son of a construction worker who finished only third grade and was taught to read by his mother, Harvey flunked out of Kent State University and got a job at Ford Motor Company where he got a car and helped his parents pay off some bills.

“My friends were graduating and I was laid off,” Harvey writes. He jumped from one job to another. He became an autoworker, boxer, insurance salesman, carpet cleaner and mailman. But all along, he knew what he wanted to be: a comedian.

At 27, Harvey was traveling from audition to audition, from gig to gig, never turning down any gig even if it paid just $50. He created 200 business cards with this professional description: “Comedian.”

Homeless, he lived in his 1976 Ford, sleeping on the front seat reclined all the way back. “I sat in my car night after night, nowhere to go, no bathroom to wash up in.” Through the cold winters and hot summers, there were days when he would really go hungry.

He felt lucky and grateful if his gig was in a venue with a free hotel room and breakfast. He kept a cooler with ice in the back of his car where he put bread, cheese and bologna, “because it would last long.”

His first standup gig was in 1985 when he was 28 at the Hilarities Comedy Club in Cleveland, Ohio. The Cleveland street where he grew up was renamed Steve Harvey Way in 2015.

He submitted his audition tape to the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson where he knew only one out of 2,000 comedians could make it to that seat next to the host. And Harvey never got to sit on that coveted couch.

In New York, he auditioned for a job where he met other aspiring comedians like Dwayne Johnson and even Jamie Foxx who was booed. Harvey’s big break came when he made it to Showtime at the Apollo. Fast forward: this dirt-poor, homeless guy who lived from paycheck to paycheck made it big and had his final standup show at MGM Grand in Las Vegas in 2012, ending a 27-year career as a comedian.

Today, Harvey is no longer just a comedian. He has also become a TV host, radio personality, producer, actor, singer and, yes: No. 1 New York Times bestselling author.

In his latest book, Harvey recounts his infamous Miss Universe moment.

He was excited when his agent told him he would host the Miss Universe pageant, and he thought it would be the “pinnacle achievement of my career.”

He recalled the three days of rehearsals to ensure they were all prepared. “I was there for every technical rehearsal... for every table read, in which we would read the script of the entire show — a run-through. I was there at 6:30 a.m. on the day of the show for the full-dress rehearsal with all 80 of the contestants.”

Harvey had a chance to connect with many of the contestants. “Ariadna Gutierrez, Miss Colombia, was an animal lover and ran a foundation to assist underprivileged children. By the age of 17, she was working as a model to put herself through college where she was studying advertising.

“Pia Wurtzbach was from a single-parent home. She broke into modeling at age 11 to provide for her mother and sister. She had entered the pageant three times and spent many hours, days and weeks practicing for the pageant.”

Harvey knew how important it was for these women to bring home the crown. “It was about bringing home an honor to their families and countries.”

Pia said: “The world stops in the Philippines when it’s Miss Universe time. It’s like a Manny Pacquiao boxing match.”

Harvey recalled: “Each day, we practiced the final walk with a first runner-up and a winner. I’d say: ‘The first runner-up is... and ‘The new Miss Universe is...’”

Harvey said that at the moment everyone had been waiting for, there were three women positioned in front. “I held the card close to my chest with my thumb covering the words ‘second runner-up.’ I announced Miss USA as the first runner-up.

“Miss Colombia and Miss Philippines were holding hands, saying a prayer: Miss Philippines in her royal blue gown, and Miss Colombia in a bronze sparkly number. Miss Colombia’s name was on the next card.

“I read the teleprompter the same as I had over the past three days: ‘And the new Miss Universe 2015 is’ — in my ear I heard, ‘Hold... hold... hold... NOW READ — ‘Miss Colombia!’ I exited the stage as the audience was screaming with delirium. Miss Colombia put her hands over her eyes in disbelief before reaching for Miss Philippines and hugging her. The Miss Universe sash was put around Miss Colombia. Tears rolled down her face... Her cousin, a former Miss Universe, entered the stage with the crown in her hand. Paulina Vega crowned Ariadna Gutierrez Miss Universe. The audience was jumping and waving flags... there were kisses and tears.

“Then as I stood backstage, I heard in my earpiece: ‘That’s the wrong name!’ I looked at the card and saw that the name of the winner was written at the bottom right of the card and not in the middle. That was not the format that I expected or what we’d rehearsed.

“Backstage there was chaos. I heard in the earpiece: ‘We have to fix this.’ At the top of the night of the pageant, a backstage manager who had previously worked at another pageant said: “The actual walk should be second runner-up, first runner-up and then the winner.’ No one relayed that to me or to the person feeding the teleprompter. I stood there stunned. I was confused and disappointed that I had said the wrong name. How could this have happened?”

Suddenly, Harvey could hear his father’s voice saying: “Be a man... Stick out your chest and handle it.” He heard his mother echoing: “You have to do the right thing by people, even if it hurts you.”

  Harvey decided at that moment, he was going to be his mother and father’s son. “My parents taught me how to be a man in the face of adversity.” There was no time for finger-pointing or passing the blame.

  “God had brought me to this moment, and I had to trust that He’d bring me through it. I forced my feet to take me back onstage. And believe me, it was hard. It took a full two minutes for the cheers and the music to die down. I started with: ‘I have to apologize.’ The contestants were laughing. They were thinking I was telling some kind of joke, as I’d done in rehearsals. Finally, I said slowly and clearly: ‘The first runner-up is Miss Colombia.... Miss Universe is Miss Philippines.’

  “Colombians in the front row started screaming: ‘Liar, liar, it’s a fix!’ All I could do was take full responsibility for what happened. I took whatever lashes they had to give me. A few minutes later, the director entered my dressing room: ‘Sorry, Steve. Everybody makes mistakes... We are going to have a press conference and I don’t want you to say anything.’”

Harvey didn’t tell him that nobody had told him there would be three names to announce instead of two. He told his director: “No, I am going to that press conference and I am going to tell them what I did.”

The director said: “Steve, you don’t have to say that.”

“Yes, I do. I was raised to be a man and to take responsibility for my actions, even if I don’t have to. I won’t be a coward or a punk just because it might be difficult or unpleasant.”

In his mind, these thoughts came: “This is your opportunity to see just how much you’ve learned from what you’ve been through previously in your life. Life is a series of lessons learned and obstacles overcome.”

At the press conference, Harvey apologized for what happened. The reporters were yelling at him but by the time it ended, they say Harvey wasn’t throwing around blame. He was taking full responsibility for the mistake.

A Colombian reporter screamed at him: “How could you do make a mistake like that? That’s never happened in the history of the pageant. What’s your problem? You can’t read?”

Some reporters tried to calm the Colombian down. “He said he’s sorry.” At the end, some reporters put their recorders down and clapped for him.

As Harvey left the press conference, he heard his son Wynton say to his bodyguard: “I want to be with my dad.”

At home, the mood was somber, but Harvey felt the love and support of his wife Marjorie and their children. “I could sense that they were proud of me walking back out onto that stage and taking responsibility. It helped me through some of the pain I felt. I couldn’t have gotten through it without their encouragement.”

He went to bed at midnight, but he tossed and turned. His wife Marjorie held his hand: “Steve, don’t beat yourself up. I know this is tough, but your parents would be so proud of you right now.”

Harvey thought: “I could have taken the easy way out and blamed the pageant, the teleprompter, anybody, anything. I jumped into an uncomfortable situation with the faith that God would see me through.”

The next day, Harvey saw that his mistake was on every news station, radio program and social media outlet. He got personal calls from representatives for Matt Lauer from the Today show and Robin Roberts from Good Morning America for exclusive interviews so he could clear his name. He turned them all down.

“I withdrew into myself. I was waiting for a message, for direction from God. I did not question why this had happened.  I had to step out on faith.”

The next day, he discovered that the media storm had gotten even worse. His social media team had written “I am sorry, Miss Columbia” on Twitter and had misspelled “Colombia.” So then people were saying: “You don’t even know how to spell Colombia!”

People were having a field day on the Internet, Harvey noted. So-called friends of his would text: “Hey, man, hang in there,” followed by a meme mocking the mistake. One was a picture of Oprah with her hands thrown in the air with the words proclaiming, “You’re Miss Universe, and you’re Miss Universe. Everybody is Miss Universe!”

Another was the photo of Kermit the Frog with the words “Y’all laughing at Steve Harvey but some of y’all announced the wrong father of your child.”

Harvey said: “They were eating me alive on social media. They were trying to joke me through it. I write jokes for a living. I did not need any jokes. I needed prayer. I was hurting in ways my ‘friends’ could not have imagined because they had never been in the kind of situation I was in.”

His children were devastated to see their father being humiliated all over the Internet. They tried to make the situation lighter by calling him Social Media King. His publicist was trying to figure out how they were going to repair the damage.

“In prior years, people had told me that I was washed up after the King of Comedy Tour. Before that, they said I was at rock bottom when my first radio show was canceled. PR experts told me my image would be ruined after my second divorce. I’m glad that God, not people, has the final say on a career. I’ve been blessed to have more than 32 years working in an industry that I love.”

To lessen his emotional pain, Harvey recited his favorite poem “Invictus” over and over again. He said it saved him because it reflected what he was feeling: “I have not winced nor cried aloud... My head is bloody, but unbowed.”

Through his crisis, Harvey received calls from Tyler Perry, Joel Osteen, Magic Johnson, Cedric the Entertainer, Bishop TD Jakes, even Halle Berry. He received the longest text from Dr. Phil on how to handle it.

Harvey knew there were protests even in the streets of Colombia where people were burning him in effigy.

On Christmas morning, Harvey posted a photo of himself with the caption: “Merry Easter, y’all.”

Harvey was getting calls of sympathy from friends and business partners from all over the world. What truly bothered him was a newspaper in Colombia that made him feel “sick to the stomach” — not because of the mistake, but because he couldn’t stop thinking about how Miss Colombia was feeling. “I felt that she was humiliated and embarrassed. For weeks, I couldn’t even get her on the phone. Her father and sister were intercepting my calls.”

He wanted to make it up to Miss Colombia and Miss Philippines. “I have always been a champion of women, and I felt horrible that I had put them in this position.”

Finally, came the good news from his producer: both Miss Colombia and Miss Philippines were willing to come on his TV talk show. It was a two-part series called “Miss Universe: The Truth.”

Pia Wurtzbach was the first guest. “I was happy to see her, but my stomach was still doing flips. I was so nervous about her forgiveness. I was thankful that she gave me a warm hug. Pia explained that when she realized she was Miss Universe, she did not fully believe it. She had mixed feelings and a lot of concern for Ariadna, which is why she kept a respectful distance from her following the correction. She told Harvey: “Let’s move forward. Let’s be happy. It was a mistake. Let’s not beat each other up for it.”

Harvey said: “I felt like I could finally breathe. I needed her to know I was sincerely sorry and how much her forgiveness means to me.”

When Miss Colombia came on the show, she and Harvey hugged for a long time. “It took everything in me to not to cry right then and there. She was more gorgeous than I remembered.”

Ariadna Gutierrez said: “I forgive you. I know you didn’t mean to do it... I was Miss Universe for four and a half minutes! “ Harvey noted that her face lit up with humor, and her beauty was even more obvious.

“When Ariadna said ‘I forgive you,’ it meant the world to me. It was what I so desperately wanted to hear. I told her how much I appreciated her forgiveness and thanked her profusely. The last thing I ever wanted for her was to be bruised and hurt after the pageant.”

At the end of the episode, Ariadna poked fun by saying: “Feliz Dia de la Madre... Perdon, Feliz Navidad.” (“Happy Mother’s Day. Sorry... Merry Christmas.”)

At the end of his book, Harvey writes: “The Miss Universe experience reminded me to stay true to my core beliefs. I may be seen by many as successful. But the incident was a reminder from God that He can take it away at a moment’s notice. Everybody has a Miss Universe moment... and when you are bold enough to step off in faith, to jump, that is when you’ll soar.”

And yes, Steve Harvey told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show — another very-late-night cable tv show that I regularly watch — that he is ready to jump again, to host the Miss Universe here in Manila this January. To give his apologies once more. And to make us forgive and laugh with him once again.

Oops! Harvey has to make another apology though, this time to Asian men, and that includes Filipino males. For saying that white women would not find Asian men attractive.

Harvey has to know that the Filipino male is the captain of his so-very-macho soul.

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Follow the author on Instagram and Facebook@milletmartinezmananquil. Email her at mananquilmillet@gmail.com. LIFE & STYLE  Millet M. Mananquil