Steven G. Norfleet is one of those actors whose career quietly built for over a decade before everything clicked into place. The Detroit-born actor and former professional dancer spent years amassing guest spots and recurring roles on prestige television before landing the leading-man role he had been working toward. Today, he’s best known as Charles Bellarie in Tyler Perry’s Netflix hit Beauty in Black, a role that finally put his name on audiences’ lips worldwide.
Biography
Steven Gregory Norfleet was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, into a family with an interesting cultural mix. His mother is American-French, and his father is Haitian-American, a heritage that grants him French citizenship in addition to his American nationality. FamousBirthdays.com lists his birth date as June 10, 1988.
Growing up in Detroit, Norfleet attended Mumford High School before heading south to Atlanta to enroll at Morehouse College, the prestigious historically Black men’s college. There, he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and was reportedly on track to become a teacher. But performing life had other plans for him.
His parents are identified in some secondary sources as Gregory Keith Norfleet (father) and a French-American mother, while he’s reported to have a brother named Brandon Norfleet.
Career
Before acting was even on his radar, Norfleet was a working professional dancer based in Atlanta. He performed as a backup dancer for R&B star Keyshia Cole and also danced for Tinashe. He even auditioned for a backup-dance position with the legendary Aretha Franklin, though he didn’t land that particular gig. The irony? He’d later play Aretha’s brother on screen.
His screen debut came in 2010 with the dance drama Stomp the Yard: Homecoming, where he appeared as a Mu Gamma Zi stepper, a natural fit given his involvement in step culture at Morehouse. He’s credited with saying the experience sparked his decision to pursue acting full-time.
What followed was a steady grind through television. From 2016 onwards, Norfleet racked up guest appearances across a wide range of shows, including Shameless on Showtime, Underground on WGN America, Being Mary Jane on BET, Chicago P.D. on NBC, and Good Girls, also on NBC. It was a hustle many actors know well, building craft and screen time one episode at a time.
His first real breakthrough came in 2019 with HBO’s acclaimed superhero drama Watchmen, in which he played O. B. Williams across five recurring episodes. The character is the late father of Will Reeves and sits at the heart of the series’ emotionally devastating Tulsa Race Massacre storyline. Watchmen went on to win 11 Primetime Emmy Awards at the 72nd ceremony in 2020, the most of any show that year, and was named the AFI TV Program of the Year. Norfleet wasn’t personally nominated, but being part of that ensemble did wonders for his reputation. He later penned a guest column for Deadline reflecting on the history and legacy of the 1921 massacre.
In 2021, he joined the cast of National Geographic’s Genius: Aretha as Cecil Franklin, Aretha Franklin’s brother, appearing in 7 recurring episodes opposite Cynthia Erivo. The role held particular personal resonance, given his history of auditioning to dance for the Queen of Soul herself.
He followed that with a memorable appearance in AMC’s Interview with the Vampire in 2022, playing Paul de Pointe du Lac, the brother of the lead character Louis. Then came his most sustained run yet: a series-regular role as Lewis in Tyler Perry’s Ruthless on BET+, where he appeared in 22 episodes across 2023 and 2024.
All of it was leading to Beauty in Black. When the Tyler Perry-created Netflix drama launched in October 2024, Norfleet stepped into the role of Charles Bellarie, the openly queer son of a wealthy Atlanta family whose cosmetics empire has a very dark underside. The series reached number one in 28 countries and spent seven weeks in Netflix’s global Top 10. Audiences and critics alike praised his portrayal of a complex, morally messy Black queer character with real warmth and depth. Season 2 Part 1 followed in September 2025, with Part 2 premiering on March 19, 2026. In early 2026, Netflix confirmed a third and final season, in which Norfleet is expected to return.
Beyond Beauty in Black, he also guest-starred in 2025 on CBS’s long-running procedural NCIS, playing Lieutenant Max Winger.
Personal Life
Norfleet is openly gay and has become one of the most visible Black queer leading men working in American television today. He’s spoken openly about how difficult it can be for Black men to live authentically in public, telling The New York Times: “Once we got together, I realised this is someone that I’m truly in love with, and I don’t want to hide it.”
The man he was referring to is Anthony Hemingway, his husband and one of Hollywood’s most respected television directors. Hemingway’s credits include Treme, True Blood, CSI: NY, Underground, and the 2012 feature film Red Tails.
The couple met in 2014 through a mutual friend at a church in Los Angeles. They got engaged in June 2018, with EBONY magazine announcing the news. On September 21, 2019, they married at the Newhall Mansion in Piru, California, in a 300-guest ceremony officiated by actress Aisha Hinds. The guest list included Regina King, Sterling K. Brown, Sarah Paulson, and Josh Duhamel. The New York Times covered the wedding in its “Vows” feature under the headline “Our Love Is Built to Last.” The couple celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary in September 2024.
They have no publicly reported children. Away from work, Norfleet is an avid tennis player and a committed advocate for LGBTQ+ representation in Hollywood. In 2025, he was named to the Native Son 101 List, an annual honor recognizing Black queer innovators.
Net Worth
No major financial publication has produced an independently verified net worth figure for Steven G. Norfleet at this point in his career. Estimates circulating online are drawn from secondary celebrity-finance sites and should be treated as rough approximations only.
In a 2026 cast earnings roundup, estimates his annual earnings at around $547,000, though the figure is uncertain. What can be stated with more confidence is that, under SAG-AFTRA rules updated in July 2024, series regulars on a one-hour streaming drama must earn a minimum of $35,000 per episode. Tyler Perry has a well-documented reputation for paying above scale, with co-stars on his productions publicly confirming they earned more than they had on comparable projects. Given that Norfleet has now appeared in over 24 episodes of Beauty in Black, his income from the show alone is likely to be substantial.
Steven G. Norfleet’s estimated net worth is $500,000 to $1 million, based on available information as of 2026. Until a more authoritative source publishes a confirmed figure, any precise number remains speculative.
