&#8216;Comedy is Too Hard to Do Right Now&#8217;

In an appearance on the Pivot podcast, Steve Harvey suggested that he left behind stand-up comedy because of “cancel culture.”

When Harvey was asked about what “acceptable jokes” comedians can make. “I even see you on Family Feud, sometimes, I can see the clock working where you got a joke, but you’re not allowed to say that joke,” said host Channing Chowder around the 37-minute mark of the podcast, seen above. “I got it… It’s very hard,” he said. “But that’s why I left stand-up in 2012, 2015, one of them. I left stand-up then because I had so many shows. I had built such a catalog of work. I was making money. I had to let something go.”

Harvey explained that if he was busy touring on weekends, it would also get in the way of his family left. “I let stand-up go because I saw the change coming,” he continued. “You remember, I said change is inevitable. You got to react or participate. So my participation was to get away from it because the cancel culture, started [being] everywhere. And all you got to do is look now the way the cancel culture works.”

The 68-year-old got his start in the world of stand-up comedy, but he hasn’t performed a set live since 2012. These days, he’s busy hosting a plethora of shows, including Family Feud and The Steve Harvey Morning Show.

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Plenty of artists have shared their thoughts on so-called “cancel culture.” Recently, Denzel Washington sat down with Complex News and said he wouldn’t be losing sleep about the idea of being canceled.

“Who cares? What made public support so important to begin with?” said Washington. “You can’t lead and follow at the same time, and you can’t follow and lead at the same time.”

The idea of “cancel culture” has often been used to hold celebrities and people in positions of power accountable for their actions or words, but it has also impacted regular people, too. Following the death of far-right political influencer Charlie Kirk, people have reported losing their jobs for criticizing his beliefs. MSNBC also fired political analyst Matthew Dowd for sharing his thoughts on Kirk, whom he called a “divisive” figure who pushes “hate speech.”

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