Steve Harvey Explains How He Stopped Giving Away His Money in Hollywood

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

So, let's talk about this. Steve Harvey Global. So, all your companies are underneath that, right?

So, I want to talk about the Family Feud Africa, but first, I'll pick up on a conversation that we just had as far as you realizing that you wanted to change things up how usually Hollywood is done, where you wanted to eliminate the traditional agent route, hiring a full-time attorney, shout out to Brandon, and actually, doing the deals yourself, negotiating the deals yourself, you and your attorney, and not having to pay the percentage, and not having to go through all of the hassle of dealing with the traditional. So, can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah.

Steve Harvey (0:42)

See, it took me years to come to this, because Hollywood is a system. They have an ingrained system out there, man. You come out here, you get an agent, then a lot of them got a manager too.

And then, when you sign a contract with a Hollywood attorney, they 5% of your contract for the duration. So, if you sign a five year deal, they get 5% of your money for five years. And everybody falls into that deal, man, because they lock you in. And then, what's crazy, what I found out was, is not a lot of agents that's beating the bushes to procure you employment. They simply list you on their roster, and when somebody wants you, they go online, and your name is under this agency's roster, and they call these people. Now, because they picked up the phone, now their ass is in for 10%.

Now, when they come in for 10%, then you wanna go do the deal, they pick up their phone and call their favorite lawyer, who is their boy, who they work in conjunction. Steve, we got the guy that's gonna cut your deal. You're so busy being happy to be on TV, you say, okay, cool, because you don't have that lawyer normally, and now, right there, you 15% of your money gone. Now, if you real stupid, you got a manager. Who is this dude?

That's some dude that's usually your homie that you started out with, and you make him your manager. Now, he can be anywhere from 5% to 20%, depend on how you cut your deal with him. Now, you looking up at your money, man, and you could be out of anywhere from 15% to 25% to 30% of your money off the dribble.

SPEAKER_1 (2:28)

Before taxes, anything.

Steve Harvey (2:29)

You ain't got nothing. So, if you make $1,300,000 of that, it's gone. Yo, man.

SPEAKER_3 (2:37)

And you're doing it in California.

SPEAKER_1 (2:38)

Yeah, and then you got to pay taxes.

Steve Harvey (2:39)

Bro, and now you got that franchise tag. So, now you're sitting up here going, then the government, they want 40

Now, you're sitting up here, man. 70% of your money gone.

And that's real, man. That's real talk. That's why, man, Hollywood is the land of illusion.

Most of us, man, are not making what y'all think we making. We just not, man, because we in that system. And it's not, it's not that's caused you stupid or nothing. It's just you get caught up in the system. So as the years went by, and I'm just not getting free of this, you know what I mean? It took me a long time to figure it out. So I said, wait a minute, man. So I had this lawyer that was doing some deals for me with a business I had, this guy named Brandon Williams, and he was black. And he was with this huge law firm, acquisition merger firm, right? And he used to come up to Chicago and do deals for me. I just liked him, man. So one day I was sitting up there, I was watching Godfather, and I was watching my favorite movie, man. And Tom is the conciliar or whatever that name is for the family, right? But he's not Italian, and he's not a made man or nothing, but he cut the deals for the Godfather. And I was sitting up really watching that movie, one of my favorite movies, I said, man, that's what I need. I need a Tom. Somebody that just cut my deals. So Brandon Williams, some years ago, we hooked up, and I just approached him one day, I said, man, you ever thought about doing something else? And he said, no, I'm really good where I am. Yeah, but that's cause, you know, you in the system too, bruh. So just let me talk to you for a little bit. And we talked about it. I said, man, I'm gonna travel. I'm gonna travel the world, man. I'm finna be global. I'm gonna be, I'm gonna take my brand and spread it across the world. I ain't gonna just sit here on United States TV. I want to go be global. I said, man, we can travel, we can do this.