Steve Harvey Reveals Why Celebrity Family Feud Was To Blame For His Bland Style (Until Now)

Steve Harvey hosting Celebrity Family Feud 2021 screenshot
(Image credit: ABC)

Who would have thought Steve Harvery was an absolute style icon? If you’ve only seen him on Celebrity Family Feud up until recently, you never would know the man has some serious color in his wardrobe. There was a very obvious shift in his digs, though, and Harvey now reveals why Celebrity Family Feud as to blame and how things are different now. 

It turns out that the new style we see Steve Harvey sporting isn’t exactly new for him. Apparently he dresses pretty similarly in her personal life, and his work attire had just been made to be bland, but not without reason. 

The longtime Family Feud host reveals in an interview with GQ that the way Celebrity Family Feud was shot, it just made sense for his suits to be super simple. And after his stylist was hired to bring out more color in his clothes, the producers wanted to play with the idea to let him wear his style on his sleeve. Here’s what the game show host says, exactly:

Well, man, it was sort of strange because I dress like this when I’m not at work, but I’m always photographed at work. And after I hired Elly and we did [the] NFL Honors [awards show] two years ago, the people at Celebrity Family Feud said, ‘Why don’t we let Steve dress like that on Celebrity Family Feud?’ And that opened up the door. Because on Celebrity Family Feud, the way they shot the show, I had to wear the same suit every show—I could just pick a dark blue or black or a gray.

You would think that with such a colorful and strong personality in a host like Steve Harvey, the people at Celebrity Family Feud would have always let that stylist part of him show on the program. That may have, if the way the show was shot made sense for it. 

Apparently production on Celebrity Family Feud never knew which order the different family games are going to be aired, and they wanted Steve Harvey to appear to be in the same suit so that it would look like it was shot during the same day. In the same interview, Harvey explained that it went on this way for years, turning the suit into a type of uniform for him. Here it is in his own words:

Well, because the way they shoot Celebrity Family Feud, they never know which order they’re going to air the shows. So on the break, at the end of the first show, I’ll say, ‘Hey, stay tuned. We’ll have new families come up,’ and we didn’t know who I was going to tape, so they asked me to wear the same thing all the time. In the first few years of Celebrity Family Feud, if you go back, that’s all I had—the same suit.

Steve Harvey has hosted Family Feud for over 10 years and Celebrity Family Feud since its creation in 2015. That’s kind of a long time to not be able to show off that sweet style he is now bringing on camera every week. 

Celebrity Family Feud airs every Sunday at 8pm Central, and now seeing Steve Harvey in a new, fresh suit each week is something to look forward to right along with the celebrities the show features and the massive fails that bring even bigger laughs. If you’re not into the game show scene, though, Harvey has a brand new show in the works that will keep him at ABC and playing by his own set of rules, which probably means he’ll be playing by his own style as well.

Carlie Hoke
Content Writer

Constantly thinking about books, coffee, and the existential dread I feel from Bo Burnham’s Inside.  While writing I’m also raising a chaotic toddler, who may or may not have picked up personality traits from watching one too many episodes of Trailer Park Boys.