Steve Harvey responds to ‘do not approach me' memo sent to staff

As fun-loving and easy going as he is on camera, Steve Harvey seems to run a tight ship off-stage.

“Do not open my dressing room door. IF YOU OPEN MY DOOR, EXPECT TO BE REMOVED,” he wrote in a letter to the staff of his Chicago-filmed talk show. “My security team will stop everyone from standing at my door who have the intent to see or speak to me.”

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Chicago columnist Robert Feder posted the entire letter and strongly suggested a soon-to-be-unemployed staff member leaked it. The show is moving to Los Angeles and lots of people are going to be looking for work.

Harvey tossed a little sliver of shade in his official farewell statement, saying “The new location will allow me to welcome more celebrity guests and more importantly let me do what I enjoy doing best, being funny.”

Harvey spoke about the letter to Entertainment Tonight, saying, "I've always had a policy where, you know, you can come and talk to me -- so many people are great around here, but some of them just started taking advantage of it.

“Look man, I'm in my makeup chair, they walk in the room. I'm having lunch, they walk in, they don't knock,” he said. “I'm in the hallway, I'm getting ambushed by people with friends that come to the show and having me sign this and do this. I just said, ‘Wait a minute.’ And in hindsight, I probably should've handled it a little bit differently.”

“I just didn't want to be in this prison anymore where I had to be in this little room, scared to go out and take a breath of fresh air without somebody approaching me, so I wrote the letter,” he said.

Still, Harvey isn’t sorry about the letter.

“I don’t apologize about the letter, but it's kind of crazy what people who took this thing and ran, man.”

Memo to whoever lands a job on the L.A. show: Don’t try taking selfies with the new boss.

Cox Media Group