The pair made a splash on social media after West shared a photo of Harvey sitting in a booth at a Chick-fil-A restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia on Tuesday.
“Me and Steve Harvey was hungry,” West captioned the photo of a smiling Harvey clad in golden-hued sunglasses, a mustard yellow shirt and khakis.
The viral tweet received a number of comments from fans who seemed to be more curious about the contents inside a plastic bag that was peeking out of Harvey’s pocket, but there were some who were just surprised to see West and Harvey hanging out together. However, their friendship may not be all that unlikely—after all, Harvey once claimed he would be West’s vice president if the rapper were to run.
“If Donald Trump wins, I’ll go on the ticket with Kanye. But I gotta tell you, I’m just going for vice president. I’m gonna let Kanye be president,” the comedian joked during a 2015 episode of his former talk show, The Steve Harvey Show.
West did announce he was campaigning for the 2020 election in July, despite missing numerous deadlines to get his name on the ballot in multiple states. He didn’t name Harvey as his vice president pick, though, and instead chose Michelle Tidball as his official candidate.
Then there was the time when Harvey deemed West “the best celebrity panelist” to ever appear on Celebrity Family Feud, which he hosts.
West made his grand debut on an episode of the popular game show spinoff that aired in July 2018. West and his cousins competed against a few of his Kardashian and Jenner in-laws. But before the episode aired, Harvey offered a few spoilers about it during an appearance on The Ellen Degeneres Show earlier that year in April. Harvey claimed West’s wife Kim Kardashian-West “didn’t know nothing” but claimed West was a pro.
“Kanye was the best celebrity panelist we ever had on the show,” Harvey told DeGeneres. “He loves the show. His people said, ‘Steve, this is the most Kanye has ever smiled since we’ve been working [with him].’ Kanye smiled! When I introduced him, he smiled. When I talked to him on the panel, he smiled. Just tune in and you’ll see Kanye smiling. He’s happy!”
Harvey added: “Kanye said he’s waited his whole life for this moment.”
Havey and West’s bond may have fully formed after the Jesus Is King rapper appeared on Family Feud. Just a few months after the episode was recorded, West enraged the masses when he suggested that slavery was a “choice” during an impromptu interview with TMZ in May 2018.
The unapologetic outburst caused many people to question West’s mental health, but on his radio program, The Steve Harvey Show, Harvey suggested nothing was wrong with West other than the fact that he doesn’t have the right people hanging around him.
“I think what Kanye is—he’s insulated in his own thoughts, in his own mind,” Harvey said at the time. “I don’t think that Kanye has people around him where he can run stuff by and bounce it off, and get some real truth from. You have to have people around you that can be truthful,” Harvey said, noting, “Kanye needs an older, black man in his life, that’s real, that will tell him the truth. Older black man, period.”
Harvey added: “Those of us that’s older know, there are certain things you just can’t say. You ain’t free to be free. I don’t know who told you that, but we’re not. Freedom of speech–they’re not talking to us.”
