Steve Harvey & Cigars
“Before you tell me what cigars do to your body, let me tell you what it do for me.” The speaker is Steve Harvey. Harvey is a supremely famous comedian, the host of TV’s “Family Feud,” a TV talk show, and a morning talk show fixture in syndicated radio. He and his wife run a foundation that provides youth outreach.
“Because I gotta work from the time I wake up, I just gotta have little moments in the day where I’m just doing what I want to do and a cigar is relaxing to me,” Harvey explains as he sits in the open doorway of his studio. He adds philosophically, “Yoga. A cigar is yoga.”
Steve Harvey’s Favorite Cigars
Broderick Steven Harvey, Sr., 66, has been smoking since 1997, right after the birth of his son.
"It was so cool—I smoked an Ashton Maduro,” Harvey recalled. “I'd tried cigars before. and it hadn't really worked for me. I smoke a lot of different cigars, but that was the first one that mattered. It was in my backyard, and I smoked it with my two best friends at the time."
He rarely has time for a large cigar but when he can, he will smoke a Cohiba Siglo VI, which he calls his all-time favorite, or a Fuente Fuente Opus X, which he calls “my go-to cigar.” Generally, like when he’s catching a break during his radio show, the cigars are smaller and medium in power, but with some girth.
"All the cigars I like have to have a nice ring gauge. If I'm going to smoke something, it has to look like a cigar from across the street. No thin ones, nothing that looks like a cigarette."
He is never without a cigar.
"I've got five humidors in my office in Atlanta, including one Daniel Marshall made me," Harvey told Cigar Aficionado. "In my office here in Chicago, I've got five more humidors, all with different things in them: Cubans, Opus X. One just has a collection of Acid cigars, because I like those flavored ones once in a while. Some of my traditionalist friends don't like that, but what do they know? I've got another one with nothing but Davidoffs. I've got a Vigilant (humidor) inside my wine cellar, with some very rare things—and another big one in my man-cave in my basement. It's so big that, when you turn the lights on in it, it looks like a store."
Steve Harvey is Funny
Harvey made it as a stand-up comic in the mid-1990s. He didn’t do one-liners. His comedy was made up of characters and their stories and some of Harvey’s own experiences going from living in a car to owning many so that if he loses everything, he’ll still have a place to live. He explained that his wife got rid of his old “O.G.” (original gangster) suits because she was tired of looking like she was married to a pimp.
Hitting It Big
Harvey reached the next level when he joined three other Black comedians – Cedric the Entertainer, D.L Hughley, and the late Bernie Mac -- in the “Original Kings of Comedy Tour.” It ran from 1998 to 2000. It was the highest-grossing comedy tour of its time, raking in $18 million and $19 million respectively in the first two years. In 2000, director Spike Lee made a movie (which can be found on streaming services) of the concert tour that added another $40 million in earnings. He learned to appreciate the power of laughter.
"When you're out there, you're a doctor," he says. "You produce a laughter that releases endorphins, a chemical that makes you feel good—and it's free. It not only gives you a euphoric feeling, but it comes with one of the most basic human emotions, one that produces hours of laughter.”
Harvey retired from stand-up in 2012. He has not lost the funny. He has been recognized for his TV success with seven daytime Emmy awards.
"Fortunately, I get to be funny on every show I do: my radio show, my talk show, the game shows. I'm able to be funny on all of them,” he said, adding that it’s a talent that cannot be taught. “But nothing can ever come close to what it feels like when you're onstage and it's 12,000 people and it's you and a spotlight, a bar stool, a glass of water and a microphone. There's nothing like that. It's the basis of everything I am."
