Seinfeld star attacks a black man with racist abuse

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1953688,00.html

Seinfeld actor lets fly with racist tirade




Dan Glaister in Los Angeles
Wednesday November 22, 2006
The Guardian

Michael Richards, best known as Kramer in Seinfeld
Michael Richards, best known as Kramer in Seinfeld. Photograph: Sarah Lee

The comic actor Michael Richards, better known as Cosmo Kramer in the long-running TV show Seinfeld, has apologised for a racist outburst that was captured on film and broadcast across the US.

Richards, 57, took exception when some black audience members talked during his act at a Los Angeles comedy club on Friday. In the recording, Richards says from the stage: "Fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a ******* fork up your ass."

Article continues
He then proceeds to insult one man with a succession of racial epithets. "Throw his ass out. He's a nigger! He's a nigger! He's a nigger! A nigger, look, there's a nigger!" Richards says.

In a television appearance on Monday night, after news of the tirade broke, Richards apologised, telling host David Letterman - who was interviewing Seinfeld star Jerry Seinfeld - that he was not a racist but had lost his temper.

"I was at a comedy club trying to do my act, and I got heckled and I took it badly and went into a rage," Richards said. "For me to be in a comedy club and flip out and say this crap, I'm deeply, deeply sorry. I'm not a racist. That's what's so insane about this."

Richards went on to say that his performance technique may be responsible for the comments.

"You know, I'm a performer," he said. "I push the envelope; I work in a very uncontrolled manner on stage. I do a lot of free association, it's spontaneous, I go into character."

Throughout the tirade, which lasted for two minutes, the audience became confused, uncertain whether the extreme language was part of Richards' act. Some laughed at the comments but as the attacks from the stage continued, there were gasps and some voices could be heard expressing disbelief.

The target of Richards' comments shouted back at Richards several times, telling him that the insults were uncalled for. "That's un-******* called for," one man said. "It ain't necessary."

Another man said: "It's not funny. That's why you're a reject, never had no shows, never had no movies. Seinfeld, that's it."

The response seemed to drive Richards to further express his anger. Several members of the audience left their seats as Richards continued his rant before himself leaving the stage. The following night, he returned to the club to perform his act.

Following the publicity given to the incident, club owner Jamie Masada said that Richards would not perform again at the Hollywood club. "The Laugh Factory is a comedy club, not a forum for personal attacks," he said.

The recording first appeared on the celebrity gossip website TMZ.com, the site that broke the news of Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic tirade earlier in the summer.

Since appearing as the scene-stealing Kramer in Seinfeld, Richards' career has been dormant. A television spin-off, The Michael Richards Show, was dropped after a few episodes, and other than his one-man comedy act and a brief stint in a West End production of Arsenic and Old Lace, Richards career has consisted of giving interviews for Seinfeld DVD compilations.