'Enjoy Nice, Brown Water': Steve Harvey To Flint Radio Show Caller

FLINT, MI — Comedian, radio host and television game show star Steve Harvey, the guy who announced the wrong winner at the 2015 Miss Universe pageant and used the gaffe to poke fun of himself, may have a little more trouble dodging heat over comments he made about the Flint water crisis on “The Steve Harvey in the Morning” show.

Harvey lived in Cleveland for a time and is a huge Cavaliers fan. A guy from Flint called into his nationally broadcast radio show Wednesday to say that Cleveland didn’t “deserve jack” after the Cavaliers lost the NBA crown to the Golden State Warriors. Harvey didn't like that.

“You from Flint?” Harvey retorted. “That’s why y’all ain’t even got clean water. When was the last time you touched water and it didn’t have lead in it?” (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Flint Patch, click here to find your local Michigan Patch. Also, follow us on Facebook, and if you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

At that point, a listener captured the co-hosts’ admonishments and Harvey’s parting shot:

“Steve, calm it down, all right? You’re out there now, you’re over the edge,” one of the hosts said, adding with a pause after each word: “Reel it in, man.”

“I wasn’t talking about the city of Flint, I was talking about him,” Harvey said.

The caller was still on the line, and at the end of the conversation, Harvey said: “Enjoy your nice, brown glass of water.”

On Instagram, listeners let Harvey have it.

One person said he was “dead wrong” to mock the Flint drinking water lead crisis, which began when the city began getting its water from the Flint River in 2014. Thousands of residents of the city of 100,000 were exposed to dangerously high levels of lead in what has been called one of the worst man-made public health catastrophes in modern times.

Someone else said Harvey was just staying in character, that he’s always been “an insensitive a------.”

“A lot of comedians hide behind the mask of comedy and fail to regard that some issues are really very sensitive,” another person wrote. “The Flint issue is a sensitive one and Steve made a mockery of himself.”

Twitter users also eviscerated Harvey.

Little Miss Flint, the plucky pre-teen who charmed President Obama into visiting Flint, offered this on Twitter:

After the kerfuffle over the exchange, Harvey said in a statement that it was “trash talk about sports,” and the the caller even laughed when he put his remarks in context.

“I made a joke directed at him, as he is from Flint, a city for which I have great affection and respect.
So much so that I devoted a full hour on my daytime talk show to raising awareness for the Flint water crisis. I also pressed then candidate, Hilary Clinton, to offer solutions to what I called one of the great catastrophes of modern times.”

Flint Mayor Karen Weaver asked Harvey in a letter to make a public apology to the citizens of Flint.

"As Mayor of the City of Flint, and someone who has been on your show and spoken with you personally about the Flint Water Crisis, I was deeply saddened by your comments about our city. While I feel it was not meant to be an intentional hurt or insult against the citizens of this community, it was.
"We are still going through many hardships and challenges caused by the poisoning of our city. To make a joke out of a tragedy such as this was in very poor taste, especially coming from someone of your stature.
"While we are making progress in replacing lead tainted service lines, we still have to use filters and remain on bottled water. As Mayor, I would appreciate, on behalf of the citizens of this community, a public apology. I would love to sit and discuss with you the status of where we are today."

Harvey’s remarks came the same day Michigan’s top public health official and four others were charged with involuntary manslaughter in a Flint man’s death from legionnaire’s disease. A dozen people in the area have died, and about 100 people have been sickened after the legionella bacteria causing the disease was carried through the city’s water system.

So far, 15 people have been charged in an ongoing criminal investigation of Flint’s drinking water lead-contamination.

Photo: Steve Harvey meets with then-President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower in New York City on Jan. 13. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images News/Getty Images)