Steve Harvey is a papa bear when it comes to meeting his daughters’ potential suitors.
“If I spot a bad one, I get rid of them,” Harvey, 67, exclusively told Us Weekly on Friday, March 22, while promoting The Steve Harvey Network. “I make no bones about it, so they’re very careful when they bring them.”
Steve is the father of four girls. He shares twins Karli and Brandi, 40, with his ex-wife Marcia Harvey. When he married wife Marjorie Harvey in 2007, he adopted her daughters, Morgan, 38, and Lori, 27.
“You can think a person is wonderful, but everybody’s wonderful in the beginning. Everybody, you always meet the mask,” he continued. “The mask can last for about 90 days, and then after a while, the mask starts unraveling, and I just try to wait on that period. Sometimes they make it, sometimes they don’t.”
While he usually waits for “the mask” to do its work at revealing someone’s intentions, he sometimes can sense a person’s vibe right off the bat. “But if you come in the house, and I know right off the top that you’re just not a good guy, I start the reading process right away,” he shared. “I don’t say nothing to my daughter, I just, behind the scenes, I start working toward getting rid of this guy.”
Steve’s pickiness over his kids’ relationships comes from a heartfelt place, as he told Us that “the person you choose to spend your life with is probably the most important decision you’ll ever make.”
The Family Feud host continued: “That relationship becomes an elevator. It can take you up or it can take you down, so choose wisely.”
Steve also has three sons. The TV personality shares son Broderick, 31, with Marcia, 69, son Wynton, 26, with ex-wife Mary Shackelford and adopted Marjorie’s son, Jason, 31.
He went on to praise his sons, in particular, for being “very respectful of women,” explaining that the “most important” piece of advice he’s shared with them is to “just be respectful of women.”
“Treat them the way you want somebody to treat your sister and your mother and then go from there. And no other treatment is acceptable. So I think they got it,” he shared before joking, “My daughters, I wish they’d listened to me more, but they got to go through it.”
Fans can get the chance to receive their own advice from Steve on his new platform, The Steve Harvey Network, powered by Fireside. The interactive network will feature live interactive interviews with Steve and several special guests.
“It’s live and I get to deal with audiences. I mean, my specialty is audiences. My specialty is live performances. So, when I have these live chats, it’s right in my wheelhouse,” he told Us of the platform. “And I never know what the questions are going to be. … It goes from relationships to advice, to motivational things, to business questions, entrepreneurship. It can go from a range of things. And I’ve just been fortunate enough that I have a life that I’ve kind of dabbled in all of it.”
With reporting by Christina Garibaldi
