Only a few comedians command the kind of respect that comedian Katt Williams had in the entertainment industry. Despite his battles against the so called establishment and beefs with his fellow comedians, Williams has consistently carved a unique followership for himself. Due to his outspoken nature, his career hit a brick wall in the industry while his contemporaries like Dave Chapelle, Kevin Hart, Chris Rock, Steve Harvey etc, dominated the airwaves with their respective films and TV shows.
Then everything we knew about Katt Williams exploded after he did a two hours sit-dawn with Shannon Sharpe on his YouTube podcast, ‘Club Shay Shay’ on the third of January 2024. Williams went on a full blown attack on big names like; Steve Harvey, Kevin Hart, Oprah Williams, Cedric The Entertainer, Harvey Weinstein, R. Kelly, Rapper Ludracris, Tiffany Haddish etc. This rolled out a huge storm in the US entertainment industry and Williams claimed in the interview, he knows a lot of industry secrets about many people he’s not suppose to know. He called 2024 the year of the truth.
“Following its progression in terms of views, within the first 20 hours I think it had something like 8 million views and I was like have I seen something like this before in 24 hours it was at 13 million views then I looked up it was at 20 million views and then I started hearing that the second most viewed interview in YouTube history 32 million views and the full interview has 37 million views this morning (Jan 9, 202). I did a rough estimation of all of the cumulative views on the full interview plus the the various Clips. I think that that interview has gotten close to 70 million views just on YouTube, we’re not even going to talk about podcast streams. the last report that I saw from Shannon Sharp’s Club Shay Instagram account said that he has the number three podcast in the United States now he holds the number two spot in the history of YouTube which is the number two search engine in the universe.” – Charles Sansu, Dreamers Pro podcast
As at the time of this publication, the interview has gathered over 48 million views on YouTube.
That interview has resulted in a lucrative spinoff effect of an entire ecosystem of shows, podcasts, clips, reactions and the like across all platforms on social media. Content creators are feeding off the viral frenzy it created, and they can’t get enough of it.
On the other hand, Multi-talented comedian and author Steve Harvey couldn’t wait much longer before he responded to Williams various allegations against him.
In a recent “Motivated” video, posted on Sunday, Jan. 7, four days after Katt Williams’ explosive interview with Shannon Sharpe, Harvey tackled the concept of dealing with haters, emphasizing that he lets God handle the various attacks directed at him by those speaking ill of his name.
“He said you ain’t gotta tell nobody nothing. All you got to do is be it,” he opens his monologue saying. “You don’t have to open your mouth.”
Harvey, who publically speaks about God often, then quoted Psalm 23:5, which says, “He prepares the table in the presence of mine enemies.” He explained that this is what his Creator does for him all the time.
“All my haters, I ain’t gotta say nothing to them. They got TV. They can cut their TV on seven days a week. All that hate,” he said slickly, “He on there.”
While the exact recording date of the video remains uncertain, it appears to be a response to the recent allegations of joke stealing raised by Williams and fellow comedian Mark Curry.
According to Harvey, who is estimated to be worth over $200 million, “Only reason you have haters is because you’re effective. You have haters for two reasons: you’re doing something that they’re jealous of or God is preparing to take you somewhere and the devil is providing opposition,” he said.
He added, “I got plenty of haters … I got somebody really attacking me right now. I mean really going after me, man. I’m just waiting to see what God gonna do.”
“All you gotta do is just keep shining. They see you. You ain’t got to say nothing,” he said, adding, “I just let him hate, man. And that’s that’s all you got to do, man. Just keep living your life.”
As for Kevin Hart, he as this to say:
“I don’t feed into the stuff at all at the end of the day it’s all entertainment to a certain degree,” Hart continued. He said he hopes people have enough sense and “logic” to do their own research.
“I just don’t have the time for it, It’s too much going on,” he added before discussing what went into making the movie premiering on Netflix on Jan. 12.
The Hart and Williams camps have never hide their disdain for each other, for quite some time. Hart previously suggested that Williams’ decline came from doing drugs in 2018, while Williams accused Hart of being puppet.
Additionally, Katt Williams claimed that Cedric The Entertainer had stolen his best joke for the comedy special “The Original Kings of Comedy” in 2000.
Williams stated that in 1998, as he was telling the joke at “The Comedy Club,” an actor from “The Neighbourhood” stopped by to compliment him on his performance. The comic, 52, went on to say that two years later, Cedric The Entertainer was pulling off the same joke in “The Original Kings of Comedy.” During a 2021 episode of “The Morning Hustle,” Williams made the initial public claim, but Cedric refuted that he had taken the joke.
The katt Williams interview has also generated responses from the likes of Ice Cube, Kevin hart, Ludacris, Cedric The Entertainer and Tiffany Haddish.
Watch the interview below.
Katt Williams Unleashed | CLUB SHAY SHAY
44,787,152 views Premiered Jan 3, 2024
