Michael Richards Explains Infamous Racial Slur Incident: ‘I Went Into Character’
Michael Richards is ready to make audiences laugh again with the release of his new autobiography Entrances and Exits. But first, he’s addressing the elephant in the room.
On Tuesday, the Emmy-winning Seinfeld star made the talk show rounds to promote his book, which hit shelves the same day, on The Today Show and The View, and he revisited the incident that largely ended his TV career. And according to Richards, he wasn’t canceled by anyone other than himself.
In 2006, Richards was performing at the Laugh Factory and was heckled by a Black audience member. In response, he reportedly shouted the “n-word” in describing the man. Witnesses said he also verbally assailed other members of the crowd with racially insensitive language.
After that, Richards explained to Today host Hoda Kotb, he decided to bow out of show business. “Anger had a hold of me. I canceled myself out,” he said. “Take an exodus, get away from show business, and see what the heck is going on inside me to have been so despicable that night, losing my cool and hurting people.”
On The View, Richards was asked by Sunny Hostin to address what his mindset was in the moment, and he answered, “I’m on stage with a microphone in my hand doing an act, breaking in materials late at night [and a] man in the audience made an announcement: I’m not funny. He doesn’t think I’m very funny, and I came back.”
“Look, I’m not a normal man,” he added. “There’s a lot of eccentricity going on in my kind of comedy. And certainly I could never have created a character like Kramer without being slightly touched. So I went into character. And I work in a comedy club environment where the ‘N-word’ is used a lot. And I decided I would let it loose. And it’s not used anymore. Those days are over. For me, they certainly are.”
Richards also admitted that he still experiences the type of anger that took hold of him in that moment, but he said that writing the book brought him a new understanding of himself, saying that it was about, “reviewing myself and getting to know myself better than ever, stepping into memories from here [as a young man] to here at 74.”
Entrances and Exits, on shelves now
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