It was the flub heard around the world. Now, nearly a month since his infamous error, Steve Harvey can "finally breathe."
The talk show host sat down with the woman he accidentally wronged—Miss Colombia Ariadna Gutierrez—to put those fateful final moments of the 2016 Miss Universe pageant to rest.
"I've needed her to forgive me," Harvey told Today's Natalie Morales in an interview Wednesday. "I needed her to know that I was genuinely sorry because I felt horrible."
After publicly forgiving him on his daytime talk show, the Colombian beauty can empathize with the man who changed her life.
"We are human beings," she said. "Everyone is able to make mistakes."
Still, the wounds of an almost-victory have not entirely healed.
"It was the happiest four minutes and a half that I ever had," she recalled. "I have been able to make an entire country happy, but after that I felt horrible."
While he has explained himself over and over again, Harvey is still faced with questions of how he could have managed such a mix-up.
No, it was not a drunken flub—"I've never been drunk a day in my life"—nor was it the result of poor practice—"I did a full run through with everybody perfectly." Instead, just chalk it up to uncontrollable human error.
"All the cards in rehearsal never had any of that on there except the name," he described. "Had I taken a moment to look down at the card, but I was trying to keep it down so that nobody saw the winner and I blew it. I blew it. I blew it in a big moment and the person that was hurt the most was her."
While Harvey said he won't be going over to Colombia on a vacation any time soon and has remained secretive about any plans to host the next pageant, he did reveal we will be seeing Miss Colombia again soon.
"I promise you," he said. "This woman will be on that stage next year."
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