As most people learn in kindergarten, personal space is a valuable thing. Especially to Steve Harvey, it seems, who issued a memo to the staff of his daytime talk show (first picked up by Robert Feder and confirmed by Variety), in which he outlined a series of rules designed to keep everyone away from him. Here are some of his dictates:
There will be no meetings in my dressing room. No stopping by or popping in. NO ONE.
Do not come to my dressing room unless invited.
Do not open my dressing room door. IF YOU OPEN MY DOOR, EXPECT TO BE REMOVED.
And a few more:
I have been taken advantage of by my lenient policy in the past. This ends now. NO MORE.
Do not approach me while I’m in the makeup chair unless I ask to speak with you directly. Either knock or use the doorbell.
I am seeking more free time for me throughout the day.
Do not wait in any hallway to speak to me. I hate being ambushed. Please make an appointment.
On the one hand, maybe it’s good that Steve Harvey’s asking for the personal space that he needs. On the other hand, Steve, an all-office memo full of caps-locked sentences is not the way to communicate that. On a third, very wacky hand, we can’t wait to see what Kenan Thompson does with this on SNL.
Update 3:30 p.m.: Steve Harvey doesn’t apologize for his diva behavior, but would like to clarify what prompted his list of particulars: “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 told Entertainment Tonight. Harvey’s open-door doctrine quickly got away from him, and he needed to take steps to regain his privacy. “Look man, I’m in my makeup chair, they walk in the room. I’m having lunch, they walk in, they don’t knock,†he continued. “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.â€