Steve Harvey’s been making lots of headlines lately, but unfortunately, it’s not for the best reasons. Yesterday, the comedian/talk show host turned heads when a seemingly rude memo to his staff was made public.

As expected, fans were quite taken aback by his “diva-like” mentality and wasted no time criticizing him for being rude to the people who work to make his show a success. But despite the criticism, Steve isn’t apologizing, nor backing down from his demands. During a brief interview with Entertainment Tonight, Steve confirmed that he did send the letter out and he explained why he did so.

All Work, No Play:

After the memo was made public, Steve decided to respond to the backlash. During a phone interview with Entertainment Tonight’s Kevin Frazier, he defended his decision and offered details about the interactions he has with his staff:

“Look man, I’m in my makeup chair, they walk in the room. I’m having lunch, they walk in, they don’t knock. 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.”

Steve continued by saying he’s only demanding his personal space because staffers began to abuse his open-door policy:

“If you come out your house, you don’t want anybody on your porch waiting on you,” he said. “You walk to your car, you don’t want people bothering you on your way to your car. Everybody wants the freedom to be able to move around.”

He also made it clear he won’t be making any apologies for his words:

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

So, Who Leaked The Letter?

Although no one has revealed the name of the person who leaked the letter, Steve believes the letter may have been leaked by a disgruntled employee. Since the letter was actually sent out in August of last year, he believes someone waited until the end of the season to leak the letter in order not to jeopardize their own job. In case y’all missed the news, The Steve Harvey Show– currently based in Chicago, IL- will be moving to Los Angeles, CA for the fall and will be a new version of the show altogether. So, most of his current staffers will be out of a job once the show wraps up.