It’s interesting how some things come together. Just yesterday, I posted a video of Steve Harvey and his new trade-in on CNN, lamenting that the community “has lost a generation of black men.” As have all of you, I have had my issues with Mr. Harvey shelling out relationship advice like he knows a thing or two about a thing or two, but I thought to myself, well finally! Something he says that makes sense.

But then, I caught wind of this:

Steve Harvey’s Ex Puts Him on Blast

And as luck would have it, my girl Sophia Nelson sent me a lead to Shanae Hall, author of Why Do I Have to Think Like a Man?: How to think like a lady and still get the man. Apparently, this CNN interview outraged Harvey’s former wife, Mary, so much that she reached out to Hall and lent her support for the book and share some details about the sheer hypocrisy of Mr. Harvey’s comments about fatherhood.

“Mary told me she saw that video and was like, this man stole my son, took my money, cheated on me…I was like oh my God at that video,” Hall recalls Mary say when they met.

Shanae revealed that Mary was completely enamoured with Harvey, who wooed her with flowers and compliments and gave her the attention she so deeply craved, a desire that stemmed from the vacuum in her heart from not having a father.

Mary was living with Harvey for 2.5 years before she found out he was still married to his first wife. Apparently, Marsha was in labor with Harvey’s son, and ‘ole boy had to high tail it to the hospital to play the good daddy. When Shanae asked why Mary just didn’t leave on the spot, she told her that it was too late–she was so deep in love with him and so entrenched in a life with him that she couldn’t let go.

Shanae knows a thing or two about cheaters herself. She is a former NFL wife to Cory Hall, former safety for the Cincinnati Bengals. She was one of those rags-to-riches girls, who married her high school sweetheart and had three of his children. Life was good for a while, until all the temptations and trappings of celebrity took its toll.

She looks back and wishes she had “The Perfect Man Chart,” that’s included in Why Do I Have to Think Like a Man?, because she missed some key parts: “I was married to my husband for eight years, and I forgot to put on that list that I wanted someone who didn’t cheat on me and someone not to put their hands on me [in physical abuse],” she says.

She recalls the day when she moved out of the mansion and into the little apartment and realized that women, including herself, “need to look beyond color, beyond the physical, and make sure [your man] loves the hell out of you.” (By the by, Shanae told me she is soooooo ready for the swirl!)

Okay, but Where’s the Sisterhood?

On our call today, Shanae expressed her dismay about the lack of support she has received from women, who have been QUICK to take bullets for and throw money at Mr. Harvey and slow to hear what sage, WOMANLY advice she may have to lend. “Why can Steve say, go pull all your hair out to get a man, but a woman says something that actually makes sense and they just want to hear it from him? The women who follow and protect [him] are [acting as if] he is their surrogate dad,” Hall supposes.

It seems as if the tides may be turning on ole Harvey. But knowing now what we know, how on earth can Essence continue to support and give him publicity when he has been so awful to the closest black women in his life–the VERY AUDIENCE they are trying to represent, and who gives them the financial support to continue to publish? What kind of message does that send?

*Stay tuned for today’s Inside Edition, where Shanae dishes on her new friend, Mary Harvey and her book at 3:30 PM (PST) on KCAL 9/CBS.