Over the past few months, dozens of current and former staffers have come forward to accuse Ellen DeGeneres of turning a blind eye to sexism, racism, and intimidation on the set of her eponymous talk show. Since then, few celebrities have rushed to DeGeneres defense despite the fact that she has many close A-list friends.

That’s why it came as a surprise this week when talk show and game show host Steve Harvey stuck his neck out to defend DeGeneres.

Fox News reported that in a new interview, Harvey described DeGeneres as “one of the coolest and kindest people I’ve met in this business.” The “Family Feud” host added that DeGeneres is “the person that I’ve known for a number of years, that I saw back in the comedy club days, when we used to split time with the same management.”

Harvey went on to say that “people want to take something and make something out of everything.”

“[Ellen] has no control over what every staff member does, what every producer does, you can’t control that,” he explained. “You don’t even know some of the stuff that’s happening.”

However, Harvey did agree that “it’s her name that’s on the show” she had to “take the hit.”

Harvey was referring to claims made by dozens of current and former staffers that their has long been a toxic workplace on the set of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.” Despite the fact that some employees have said that there was an atmosphere of racism, Harvey said that he does not believe DeGeneres has a “racist tendency.”

“I’m a 63-year-old Black man. I’ve been Black the entire time. I ain’t took no days off. I ain’t experimented with nothing else. I ain’t got nothing else going. I’ve been a Black dude my whole life. I know racism,” he said. “If I have a conversation with you, I know if you got racist tendency somewhere in you, because it radiates. I can feel it. I’ve been around a long time, man. That’s not Ellen DeGeneres. That’s just not her, period.”

Harvey added that when the controversy first broke, he sent a text to DeGeneres telling her to “keep your head up,” and he’s confidant that she’ll be able to bounce back from this.

“I think Ellen’s going to be absolutely fine myself. I really do,” he said.

This piece originally appeared in UpliftingToday.com and is used by permission.

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