Steve Harvey tells a story in a resurfaced interview of how he gave an HBCU graduate $400,000 and the young man made a tenfold return on the investment.
In an interview with the founders of “Earn Your Leisure” podcast in March, co-hosts Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings, Harvey said a young student’s stock pick made 10 times his money in two years.
The story of a college grad
Thabiti Stephens is a Morehouse graduate with honors who happened to be friends with Harvey’s oldest son, Broderick.
When Broderick declined an offer to work at his father’s company, opting to pursue showbiz, he recommended Stephens to work at Steve Harvey Global, Harvey’s production company.
Stephens told Harvey he got multiple full-ride scholarships at several universities but chose Morehouse. He then explained his career outlook and the cost of his decisions, and the famed comedian immediately took the young prospect as his chief of staff in 2015.
Stephens shared with the “Family Feud” host that he always wanted to conduct business at “big meetings” discussing exports and imports.
The next day, Harvey presented the Stephens with his big chance.
“’You want a big meeting? I got a big meeting for ya ass!’” Harvey said in an interview.
“I hired him and I gave him a salary that would save him all those years in school for it [sic],” he added.
Harvey gave Stephens $400,000 and told him to show how he would invest in the stock market.
“When I tell you that he gave me 10 times the money,” Harvey says of the stock market success of Stephens, who has been working for Harvey for seven years now. And in those seven years he’s helped make Harvey richer.
According to Harvey, Stephens ultimately “quadrupled” Harvey’s money. “That money is just sitting there making money,” Harvey said.
Obviously, Stephens has a knack for investing. Today, it appears that Stephens has his own business management firm called The Stephens Group. According to the website, The Stephens Group, is a “boutique business management firm that specializes in strategic joint ventures and partnerships for professionals, entertainers, corporations and governments.”
Stephens still works for SHG as chief of staff. He’s been with SHG for seven years.
Harvey’s Own Money Lessons
Throughout his career, Harvey has had his own lessons with money. Not only does he claim he was homeless for three years, living out of this car, he, at one point, was in debt to the IRS for millions.
On another appearance on the podcast, Harvey said he once owed the Internal Revenue Service millions of dollars at one point in his illustrious career.
“My accountant died, and an accountant that worked for him called my lawyer and said, ‘We have a problem,’” he told the hosts he owed the IRS $25 million in 2008.
“She had found on the floor all my tax forms for seven years, signed with the checks stapled to them,” recalled Harvey. The longtime game show discovered that the people he hired to handle his finances “were cashing the checks, keeping the money, and not turning in the tax forms.”
Harvey buckled down and took every and any job he could and started sending the IRS $650,000 a month for seven years until the debt was cleared.
