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“Everything I have is because of this girl right here.” These are the words that Steve Harvey once told Essence when speaking on his wife, Marjorie Harvey. The saying goes that besides every great man is an even greater woman, and the Family Feud host is standing firmly by that saying, constantly praising his better half any chance he can get.
The story of how Harvey met his third (and current) wife dates back to 1990 when the two had a chance meeting at a comedy club in Memphis, Tennessee. Although seemingly a moment of kismet, it was a rough start to their relationship. However, according to the Essence interview, Harvey predicted that he would be with then Marjorie Elaine Ridge-Woods in the long run when he stood on stage and announced directly to her, “I don’t know who you are but I’m going to marry you.” Marjorie states that her moment of clarity came weeks later, saying “I knew he was The One shortly after I started dated him…but then he just left. Disappeared.”
Harvey states that financial instability as well as personal career development were the cause of him not being in the best place. “Before a man can be of use to a woman…he’s got to know who he is, what he does and how much he’s going to make,” he tells the magazine. As fate would have it, the pair would meet years later in 2005, shortly after Harvey’s second divorce was finalized, and in 2007 they married.
One thing that the Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man author admits, is that earlier on in their marriage, he almost blew it, thanks to a $20 million tax lien. “The first thing the Harveys had to do together was face the IRS,” Essence reported. “According to Steve, no sooner had they been married than he learned his accountant had died, leaving seven years’ worth of Steve’s tax returns unfiled. Tax payment checks made out by Steve were attached to the returns, but had not been mailed out, evidently, for years…the same year the Harveys vowed to stay together ‘for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer,’ Steve Harvey was hit with a staggering $20 million tax bill.”
Harvey shared, “No one has ever even heard this story,” adding that his closest confidants told him that it would be in his best interest not to tell his wife. “She’ll leave you,” they expressed to him. “This is the happiest we’ve ever seen you..but nobody is going to stick around with this kind of mess.”
Instead of following the advice of his confidants, the entrepreneur decided to share the information with his wife. “I said, ‘If this woman leaves me over this, I will be the most surprised man on planet Earth,’ he said. The couple has remained married ever since.
“Every great man has a woman… I didn’t say, successful man, I said great man,” he stated to the magazine. “Yeah, maybe you’re successful if you sign a $16 million NBA contract. But greatness is when you’re the husband and father you’re supposed to be. When everyone surrounding you looks up to you, depends on you, and you come through for them. That’s greatness.”
He continued, “Do you think Dr. Martin Luther King was anything without Coretta? You take Michelle out of Barack Obama’s equation, and he is a whole other dude out there.”
