Steve Harvey on the Russ Parr show talking about MJ Oct 13 2004

Air date: October 13 2004 Steve Harvey was on the Russ Parr radio show this morning talking about the interview with Michael and the Eminem controversy -Harvey says he doesn’t understand why people don’t get why he’s standing by his friend -says he’s actually talked to Michael and not simply depended on what the media has said about him -says if you sit and talk to Michael you’ll know he hasn’t lost his black consciousness; and he’s a billionaire who just can’t do what everybody else is doing -says the global community embraced Michael and that Michael’s never “left” the black community. -says: “If you were on trial, fighting for your life and your children and your family, all you want is for somebody to let you go to court and just have your day on trial. Not to be pre-tried, especially by a dude like Eminem whose closet ain’t exactly skeleton clean anyway.” -says: “I don’t want him [Eminem] to think he has the right to just do any African-American person when he wants to, when no one has said nothin’ about him, his little daughter, who is a beautiful little girl, and the situation with his girl–who’s been in the run from the law, been in rehab. Everybody said ‘we ain’t writing songs about that’. So if Mike get in trouble, where you come from? Where do you come from with that?” [cheering in the background]
-says: “Were talking about a guy who’s in the fight for freedom, who’s on trial right now for some very, very serious charges. And he has the right to a fair and free trial. And if a person like Eminem comes up and uses his celebrity status at this particular time in this cat’s life to do a video like that–where the sight of him makes you throw up, and you got all this demeaning stuff in the video–I mean, enough is enough from this guy.” -says: “Well see here’s the deal. Mike, who made Mike was the African American community with the Jackson 5. Globally, the world took Michael Jackson cause he was hot. So they embraced him everywhere. And then the same community–we turn around and we wrote the jokes about his skin, him wanting to be white, when the dude has a disease [vitiligo]-and we did all of this. No one says Michael Jackson has left the African American community. He has become global. And that’s what the dude has done. If you sit and talk with him, besides these media people who take and create the thing ‘MJ’–if you take Michael Jackson as is, ever sit and talk to him, he hasn’t lost his awareness and his African American conciousness. Now, the dude is a billionaire, so guess what? He got money now to be certain places. He can’t do nothin’ normal we do. So he comes across as very, very different. I just had the opportunity to sit with him several times and talk with him. But the story ain’t really about ‘Steve Harvey’. Bob Johnson feels the same way. Bob Johnson pulled the video off the air. So it ain’t just Steve Harvey. And when people try to make it ‘the Steve Harvey story’, it ain’t. I didn’t do it for publicity. I don’t need none. I just stood up for him as a friend.”