Key Takeaways
- Steve Harvey says NBC canceled his talk show and removed him from Little Big Shots after he refused to move Celebrity Family Feud from ABC, telling executives, “They believed in it. They gave me a crack. I’m gonna stay with them.”
- Harvey claims then-NBC executive Paul Telegdy took the rejection personally and targeted his TV career, leading to both NBC jobs ending within days in May 2019.
- Harvey says the setback freed him to create and own ABC’s Judge Steve Harvey, which paid more than his two former shows combined: “I recovered from that real nicely.”
Steve Harvey says NBC did not simply cancel his daytime show—the network tried to wipe out his television career after he refused to walk away from ABC.
During a wide-ranging conversation with his daughter Brandi Harvey on Vault Empowers, the comedian traced the fallout to NBC’s decision to pass on Celebrity Family Feud. Harvey said he offered the network the series first because he was already hosting both his talk show and Little Big Shots under NBC.
The response, according to Harvey, was blunt: “No, we don’t want that. That’ll never work.”
ABC saw it differently. The network picked up Celebrity Family Feud and placed it on Sunday nights, where Harvey said the show began “crushing NBC’s Sunday night lineup.”
Once the series proved itself, Harvey claimed then-NBC executive Paul Telegdy returned with a lucrative proposition: Move the hit from ABC to NBC, and the network would match whatever Harvey was being paid.
Harvey refused. “They believed in it. They gave me a crack. I’m gonna stay with them,” he recalled telling Telegdy.
He believes that decision turned a business disagreement into something personal. “That white man could not believe I told him no,” Harvey said. “And so he made it a point.”
The warning signs were small at first. Harvey said NBC executives who regularly visited his set stopped acknowledging his birthday and Christmas. “I didn’t get a fruit basket. I didn’t get no cigars. I didn’t get nothing,” he recalled.
Then, Harvey claimed, Telegdy declared, “I’ll show him. I’ll take his whole TV career.”
In May 2019, Harvey lost two major jobs within days. His daytime series ended after seven seasons, clearing space on NBC-owned stations for The Kelly Clarkson Show. NBC also replaced him with Melissa McCarthy on Little Big Shots, which Harvey had hosted for its first three seasons.
At the time, Telegdy publicly praised McCarthy as a “strong creative force” who would bring a “fresh perspective” to the series.
Harvey now frames the double hit much differently: “So he canceled the talk show and Little Big Shots. And he thought he rid himself of me.”
The cancellations came after Harvey had already helped revive another television institution. When he joined the syndicated Family Feud in 2010, producers initially worried that his habit of joking about contestants’ wild answers would not fit the format.
Harvey refused to flatten his comedy for the game show and said its ratings eventually climbed from the twos into the sevens. That success gave him enough leverage to expand the franchise with ABC—and enough confidence to hold his ground when NBC wanted it back.
Harvey said an executive producer later urged him to meet with Telegdy, offer changes and negotiate for his shows. He dismissed the idea immediately. “No, I’m not going to beg nobody for nothing,” he said. “Why I got to beg him? He didn’t give me this career.”
Being pushed out ultimately gave Harvey room to build something he controlled. He went on to create Judge Steve Harvey for ABC, claiming he owned the courtroom series, earned more from it than he had from his two former programs combined, and completed production in a fraction of the time.
“Well, now you done freed me up,” Harvey said. “I recovered from that real nicely.”
But Harvey’s NBC account carried the same message that has driven his career: A powerful executive could take away two shows, but not the person audiences came to see.
“My career came from a higher power,” Harvey said. “He’s going to take care of me—and he did.”
