[0:00]I used to spend the night in hotel parking lots. What was I going to do? I ain't had nowhere to stay, so I lived in the car. I had $35. And I said, come on, God, man, I've been trying to make this dream come true. You don't left me out here like this. And I was crying so hard that he just said, I didn't like hear a voice or nothing. But he spoke to me and however he said, if you get up, I'm going to take you places you ain't never been. Now, I was fixing to quit. So I said, skip it. I'm going to quit anyway. So I got in my car, I went to a payphone, and I was going to call my dad. You remember back in the day where you could punch in a code and call your answering machine and get your messages? So I call, and I punched in the code, and the music said, doop. He said, hey, Steve, this is Chuck Sutton with Showtime at the Apollo. We saw a tape of you. You're very funny. If you can get here Sunday night, I would love to put you on television. Call me back, let me know if you can make it. So I hung the phone up. I'm crushed. Cuz my whole dream of being on TV, and I couldn't get to New York. I got $35. How am I going to get to New York? I can't make it. So I'm standing there at the phone booth and tears just coming down my face. I said, God, so that must be a sign for me to go home. Cuz that's it. I ain't even got the money to go to the Apollo. My whole thing I want to be on TV. I couldn't even make the dream come true. I'm just I'm I'm this is the most messed up moment. And so I said, man, let me call this dude back and see if he said this Sunday. Cuz maybe he said next Sunday, and I can hustle up a little bit of money or something. I don't know what I'm going to do, but let me just call him back. So I called him back. Steve, this is Chuck, sudden Showtime at the Apollo. We saw a tape of yours. You're very, very funny. Look, we have an opening Sunday night at Showtime at the Apollo. If you can make it, we'd love to put you on TV. I said, is this Sunday? Before I hit the button, I heard, You have another message. Now, it wasn't there before. So I punched my code in, I listened to the second message. He said, Steve Harvey, this is Tom Sover from the Comedy Caravan. I have this was a Thursday. He said, I have a gig in Jacksonville, Florida on Friday night that pays $150. If you can get there Friday night, you'll make $150. So I I called him back and I said, hey, Tom, did you get a gig away? He said, no, it's still available. He said, can you get there? I said, I'm in Pensacola, Florida. I'm three and a half hours away. So I drive to Jacksonville, Florida, and that night, I killed. I made the one 50. The club owner said, man, you're funnier than the guy we hired. If you stay tomorrow night, I'm going to give you another $150. So now I got $300 now. So I get on the phone, I call Chuck Sutton. I said, hey, man, is the gig still available at Showtime at the Apollo? He said, well, we got one opening left. I said, I'll be there. So I called Eastern Airlines, who used to be open back then. They had a special for $99 going from Jacksonville, Florida to New York round trip. So I parked my car at the airport, I got him.
[3:41]Got him.
[3:44]Got him. Got on playing flu. Everything I had was in two bags. Got to the Apollo. I said, hey, man, I'm here. I got there at 11:00 in the morning. He said, you can't stay here, cuz you don't come on to the late show tonight. I said, man, I ain't got nowhere to go. I said, if you just let me stay in this building, man, I ain't going to move around nothing. I ain't got nowhere to go. I'm in Harlem. I can't go back out here. I got these two bags. I got victim wrote all over me, man, so He said, all right, if you go upstairs, don't come down. So he put me in the dressing room on the sixth floor. So that's where all the comedians was. So I stayed up there, I got hungry around 3:00, and I couldn't take it no more. So I went back downstairs, dude named Alton Lisen. I said, hey, man, he said, man, I thought I told you don't come down them damn steps. I said, hey, man, I'm just hungry, man. I said, if let me go to that KFC, I saw on the corner. Just let me get some chicken. I'll come right back. He said, man, if you ain't back in 20 minutes, you ain't getting in this building. So I went, bought me some chicken, came back. So the comedians started coming in the building. They start coming up on the sixth floor. So I meet this guy named DL Hugley. All right, I introduced myself. He introduced himself. I'm sitting there, another guy come in named Dwayne Johnson. Then this other dude walked in named Jamie Fox. And I introduced myself. We don't know each other. Ain't none of us famous. It's 1991, man. They gave everybody the lineup. I was on the last show of the night. I don't go on to 11:00 at night. I don't had this this four pieces of chicken. I'm starving, man. That chicken didn't wore off. I'm nervous, man. I'm about to throw up. DL Hugley went downstairs. DL Hugley got booed off. Dwayne Johnson got booed off. Jamie Fox went down there and got booed. They booed Jamie, then Jamie started singing. And then they start clapping. And Jamie had their ass. Then he went back to them jokes, and they got his ass. So I'm walking down the steps, and I see Jamie sitting on the steps. I said, hey, man, hang in there. He said, man, that ain't never happened to me before, man. This is crazy. This is Jamie Fox, man, one of the most talented people in all of comedy. Now, you don't even know how nervous I am, man. I can't even. My breathing is shot, cuz these dudes been booed. So I walk out. I had wrote this joke. Uh, Mike Tyson had got in a fight in Harlem with this heavyweight name Mitch Green. Mike Tyson had hit the dude in the eye in the store. Now, he was on the news, his eye was swollen. So the joke I wrote was they was interviewing Mitch Green. And he was telling everybody what happened, but his eye took over the interview. And I wrote this joke that his eye start talking and was just I'll tell you what happened. And I wrote this whole joke about this dude's eyeball talking. And when the punch came all this here, the Apollo, man, they went crazy. They lost their mind. I got a standing ovation, man. I walked off stage. I walked off stage, man. Just start crying. I couldn't believe it. They paid me. I made $750 for being on TV for one night. I'd never made $750 telling jokes in one night. And so that was my my moment of never giving up. That's when I first learned that faith was everything that that you have to remain faithful. That's when I first learned that faith was everything that that you have to remain faithful. Sinbad was the host of the show. He got this job at on uh, Different World. And so he quit. And so Mark Curry became the host. And then Mark Curry got hanging with Mr. Cooper, and he quit. And they came to me and said, would you come back to New York and host Amateur night for us to just try you out. Oh, ain't no problem. And so I went to New York, I hosted Amateur Night, and I was killing, but every time we went to commercial break, I was supposed to let the warm-up act take over like Reuben does. But I knew not to let the warm-up act do that cuz he would change the attitude of the crowd, cuz the Apollo was a wild play. So I stayed out there. I did the warm-up and the hosting. And I created a bond with that audience. And that's how I got on TV was my very first TV show. I hosted Showtime at the Apollo. I ended up being the longest running host in the history of Showtime prize. I did that show for eight years. Nobody ever did it for eight years. And that was my turn back moment. See, in your life, everybody has a turn-back moment. You have a moment where you could go forward, or you can give up. But the thing you had to keep in mind before you give up is that if you give up, the guarantee is it will never happen. No way under the sun. The only way the possibility remains that it can happen is if you never give up no matter what. Because God is always coming. He's never too late. At your at your worst, look, man, when they told me I had to be in New York, I saw no way I could get there. But that God, though. He made the phone ring. I end up in Florida. I made $300. Then I go to New York, I make $750. Almost got $1,000. Out of nowhere, that's that's what happened to me. That was my my moment of never giving up. That's when I first learned that faith was everything that that you have to remain faithful.
