Steve Harvey Is Not Sorry For Memo Protecting His Personal Space

Talk show host Steve Harvey finally spoke Thursday about the leaked memo, where he instructed his staff to stay away from him, during an exclusive interview with Entertainment Tonight.

While Harvey came under a lot of criticism after his August memo was leaked Wednesday, the host of “The Steve Harvey Show” stood his ground, saying it was important for his personal space as he was being “ambushed” wherever he was on set.

“I could not find a way to walk from the stage to my dressing room, to sit in my makeup chair, to walk from my dressing room to the stage or to just sit and have lunch without somebody just walking in,” Harvey told ET’s Kevin Frazier over the phone.

Read: List Of Steve Harvey's Shocking Demands As He Moves To LA

“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 explained.

The memo, which was published by Robert Feder’s Chicago media blog gave his staffers a number of directives, including to “not come to my dressing room unless invited” and to not “approach me while I’m in the makeup chair unless I ask to speak with you directly.”

Harvey further justified himself in the conversation with ET by saying, "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," he said.

The memo was sent out before the premiere of the fifth season of his talk show, which is ending this month. Harvey already has another new series scheduled for September this year and is shifting base from Chicago to Los Angeles.

In his interview with ET, Harvey said the timing of the leaked memo coincided with the end of his stint in Chicago and could have possibly resulted from a disgruntled employee’s angst.

"If you come out your house, you don’t want anybody on your porch waiting on you," he explained his position. "You walk to your car, you don’t want people bothering you on your way to your car. Everybody wants the freedom to be able to move around."

"I just didn't want to be in this prison anymore where I had to be in this little room, scared to go out and take a breath of fresh air without somebody approaching me, so I wrote the letter," he added.

And he said he did nothing wrong in putting his foot down. Harvey said, "I don’t apologize about the letter, but it's kind of crazy what people who took this thing and ran, man. I appreciate you asking me."