Steve Harvey is joining the growing number of celebrities who’ve expressed their thoughts on Kanye West‘s unapologetic outbursts, most notably the rapper’s remark implying slavery was a “choice.”
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Kanye. I think what Kanye is – is he’s insulated in his own thoughts, in his own mind,” Harvey, 61, said on Thursday’s episode of his radio program, The Steve Harvey Morning Show.
“I don’t think that Kanye has people around him where he can run stuff by and bounce it off, and get some real truth from. You have to have people around you that can be truthful,” the host continued.
Harvey also gave West, 40, some advice following his recent behavior.
“Kanye needs an older, black man in his life, that’s real, that will tell him the truth. Older black man, period,” he said. “Those of us that’s older know, there are certain things you just can’t say. You ain’t free to be free. I don’t know who told you that, but we’re not. Freedom of speech – they’re not talking to us.”
West came under fire for implying that slavery was a “choice” for African-Americans on TMZ Live Tuesday. “You hear about slavery for 400 years. For 400 years?! That sounds like a choice,” he said. “You were there for 400 years and it was all of y’all? It’s like we’re meant to be in prison. I like the word ‘prison’ because slavery goes too direct to the idea of blacks … Prison is something that unites us as one race.”
Harvey’s comment about West comes over two weeks since Harvey spoke about the Grammy winner and his wife Kim Kardashian‘s Celebrity Family Feud taping, which air when the show returns on June 10.
“Kanye was the best Celebrity Family Feud panelist we’ve ever had on the show,” Harvey told Ellen DeGeneres in April. “His people said, ‘Steve, this is the most Kanye has ever smiled since we’ve been working with him.’ Kanye smiled! When I introduced him, he smiled. When I talked to him on the panel, he smiled. Just tune in and you’ll see Kanye smiling. He’s happy!”
He jokingly added, “Kim didn’t know nothing. Nothing. … Their family is a little bit different. When you don’t give a good answer, they go, ‘What did you say?’ [I was] going, ‘You’re supposed to go, good answer.’ ”
A source recently told PEOPLE that the Keeping Up with the Kardashians reality star, 37, is doing her best to protect her husband after he made controversial remarks on Twitter and in new interviews over the past week.
“Kanye is the most amazing person when he’s not acting like this. But when he gets manic, it’s really hard for everyone around him,” the source said. “Kim is absolutely worried about him right now, but she will defend him publicly to the end. She’s a very loyal wife, and her tweets and everything she’s been saying is definitely very calculated to help Kanye.”
Stars, including Christina Aguilera, Eve and Will.i.am, also have spoken out about West’s slavery comment.
