Stars Who Struggled Before Making It Big

Steve Harvey

Before he was a successful talk-show and game-show host, Steve Harvey was a stand-up comedian trying to make it in the ’80s. After splitting from his first wife, he would send most of his earnings back to his two children and money became so tight that he found himself homeless after some of his gigs fell through.

In an interview with People, Harvey recounted the time he had to live out of his 1976 Ford Tempo: “I had nowhere to go. It was so disheartening. A week is really the maximum you can do. This was three years! It was rock bottom.” When his gigs wouldn’t put him up in a hotel, Harvey had to shower at gas stations or community pools and used an Igloo cooler as a makeshift refrigerator in his car.