*“Seinfeld” star Michael Richards is opening up about using the N-word at a Black heckler during a standup comedy show in 2006.
Richards’ viral onstage meltdown led to an apology statement on the Late Show With David Letterman, but it also drastically disrupted his career.
In a new interview with People magazine, Richards discussed the controversy while promoting his new memoir, “Entrances and Exits,” which will be released on June 4. During the interview, he noted that he’s “not looking for a comeback” and doesn’t expect people to forget what he said that night.
“I was immediately sorry the moment I said it onstage,” Richards told the publication.
“My anger was all over the place and it came through hard and fast. Anger is quite a force. But it happened. Rather than run from it, I dove into the deep end and tried to learn from it. It hasn’t been easy,” he explained.
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“Crisis managers wanted me to do damage control. But as far as I was concerned, the damage was inside of me,” Richards added.
After the incident, Richards dedicated years to deep analysis, attempting to understand the root of his anger, which he attributed in part to his own insecurities.
“I was a good character actor, but I was comfortable being the character, not in being me,” he told PEOPLE.
“I’m not racist. I have nothing against Black people. The man who told me I wasn’t funny had just said what I’d been saying to myself for a while. I felt put down. I wanted to put him down.”
Richards claims that since the heckling event, he’s spent the past 17 years “learning and healing.”
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