Steve Harvey says he was just joking, but does his explanation hold any water?
Wednesday, a man who said he was from Flint, Michigan, reportedly called in to the “Family Feud” host’s radio show and gave Harvey a hard time about the Cleveland Cavaliers losing the NBA Championship. The caller supposedly said Cleveland didn’t “deserve jack.”
Harvey, being a Cavs fan, was perturbed.
The comedian reportedly fired back by making jokes about the water crisis in the Michigan city, saying the man didn’t even have clean water, according to Detroit Free Press and MLive.
In a video clip posted from the exchange, Harvey’s co-hosts can be heard telling the comedian to “reel it in.” Harvey says he was just talking about the caller, not the city of Flint.
Harvey persisted, and before the caller hung up, he added, “Enjoy your nice brown glass of water.”
As Uproxx notes, Harvey’s comments come around the same time that officials were charged with involuntary manslaughter over their handling of the Flint crisis, which has resulted in 12 deaths connected an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease.
The Twitter backlash was immediate.
The mayor of Flint, Karen Weaver, reportedly called for an apology, sending a letter saying, “I was deeply saddened by your comments about our city. While I feel it was not meant to be an intentional hurt or insult against the citizens of this community, it was.”
Harvey issued a statement that he and the caller were “talking trash about our teams and cities.”
The comedian went on to say, “Any attempts to craft this into anything more serves no one.”
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