Ken Berwitz
Thereis no question that the mistake was Harvey\’s because, immediately afterward, hesaid “I\’d like to apologize wholeheartedly to MissColombia & Miss Philippines for my huge mistake. I feel terrible.” That ends the issue, doesn\’t it?
Uh…..no.
Now, it turns out, that Steve Harvey may not have made a mistake at all. Based on a backstage video, created immediately after Miss Colombia was crowned and posted at “snapchat” , he may have been covering for the mistake of someone in the control room.
From Diana Falzone\’s article at foxnews.com:
Steve Harvey took the blame for perhaps the most epic beautypageant host blunder of all time on Sunday night\’s Miss Universe 2015 Pageant,but some are pointing to a backstage Snapchat video as proof the mistake mayhave been someone else\’s.
A seven-second behind-the-scenes video shows Harveyimmediately after naming the wrong winner — Miss Colombia instead of MissPhilippines — pointing to a cue card and talking to an unidentified personsaying: “The teleprompter said Miss Universe – Colombia.”
…a pageant queen from the Miss America organization, MissAlabama Meg McGuffin, who wrote: “Watch the Miss Universe snap story…Harveysays, “The TelePrompter said Miss Universe-Colombia”…someone in production isfired….”
Another social media user, Taylor Ramsey, weighed in: “Teleprompter was wrong. Yes he had a card, but we all know the card isjust for show…from #Miss Universe snapchat.”
Personally, I don\’t care about the Miss Universe contest. I never did. “Competitions” like this are meaningless to me and I don\’t watch them. And, while I\’ve always found Steve Harvey affable and likable, I\’ve never understood why he has become such a superstar.
But I do care about the quality of a man who would take the kind of hit Steve Harvey took, to try to prevent someone far further down the food-chain from having his/her life turned upside down because of human error.
If announcing Miss Colombia as the winner was Steve Harvey\’s mistake, he did the right thing by standing up and apologizing the way he did.
If it was not Steve Harvey\’s mistake – and there clearly is strong reason to believe this is the case – then he is the stand-up guy of the decade.
Either way, my view of Mr. Harvey has taken a quantum upward leap.
