Steve Harvey is recanting his apology for his 2015 Miss Universe blunder.

Harvey was a recent guest on Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast. He opened up about his apology and now is singing a different tune. In 2015, he was the master of ceremonies for that year’s Miss Universe pageant.

Harvey placed himself at the center of controversy when he mistakenly announced first runner-up, Miss Colombia, Ariadna Gutiérrez, as the winner. Then, as Gutiérrez was well into her on-stage celebration, Harvey returned to declare the actual victor was Miss Philippines, Pia Wurtzbach.

After the boos and tears cleared, Harvey did his best to apologize and explain how he fumbled the play.

“I will take responsibility for this. It was my mistake. It was on the card. Horrible mistake,” he said. Harvey then revealed the card to the cameras so the viewing audience could see what was written inside.

Sharpe brought the moment up as one of the “lowest” points in Harvery’s career, compared to his other merits.

He asked the 66-year-old entertainer if it was just a matter of misreading the teleprompter or something else.

Harvey said he read what was “exactly in the prompter” and then began to detail what led to the confusion.

Harvey revealed there were disagreements during rehearsals in the week leading up to the pageant regarding the sequence in which the MC should read the names.

According to Atlanta Black Star, before WME/IMG purchased the pageant from Donald Trump, the tradition called for a first and second runner-up to be announced before the winner.

Harvey told Sharpe the new showrunners thought that order was anti-climatic, so they switched things up.

“All week long, we rehearsed it,” he said. “We not gonna do, we just gonna do a second runner-up. She get out the way, and then next we gonna announce the winner.”

Despite that being the plan, a member of the old regime did not agree and took it upon herself to switch the names to the old sequence order without telling Harvey. She then wrote the first runner-up’s name on the card, according to Atlanta Black Star.

In addition to being on stage with a botched card, Harvey told the podcast host his thumb was covering up that portion of the card’s information, and he also chose to rely on the teleprompter.

Harvey claimed he read the name as they rehearsed and as it was displayed.

He explained, “Why else would I say, ‘And the new 2015 Miss Universe is’? It wasn’t but one more name on the card.”

Harvey then recalled he was unaware of any mistake until he went backstage. Then, a member of his team told him he misread the card.

“I said, ‘I ain’t said s**t wrong,” he said. “I read the card, and I read what was in the teleprompter.’ He said, ‘Nah, bruh, the lady, she put the name down here. You supposed to read that one.’ I said, ‘Dawg, that ain’t what we rehearsed.'”

He said a production team member reassured him they would address the mix-up in the media the following day.

Harvey’s good conscience got the best of him, causing him to return to the stage and take the heat for the misreading, which he now regrets.

“Stupidest s**t I ever did. I should have let ’em fix it in the newspaper,” he said. “My stupid ass walked right out there and took the full hit, man. I took it dead in the teeth like it was all my fault, and it wasn’t.”

 

Harvey admitted to Sharpe that the backlash from the accident was brutal. He received public scrutiny and ridicule from the Colombian and American press.

“I had never seen anything like it. Bruh, I was everywhere,” he remembered. “I’ve never been ridiculed. A dude, man, that I really liked on CNN, I ain’t gon’ say his name, T.J. Holmes, tore my ass,” he jokingly said.

Although the situation was disastrous, Harvey came out on the other side, realizing it had all worked out in his favor.

“I had just wrote on my vision board, I was asking God to increase my global brand and persona. In 48 hours, Sharpe, my name had been Googled 4 billion times; 4 billion impressions in 48 hours. I was the most famous person in the world,” he said. “God had increased my global brand and persona.”

Miss UniverseShannon SharpeSteve-Harvey