Seinfeld star Michael Richards has finally spoken publicly about his infamous N-word-filled tirade in 2006, saying, “I’m not racist”.
At a stand-up show in Hollywood in November 2006, Richards, who played Kramer in the ‘90s sitcom, launched into a racist rant against a group of Black and Hispanic audience members who were heckling. Among a litany of N-words, Richards also made references to lynching and Jim Crow racial segregation laws. The rant was captured in mobile phone footage and quickly spread online.
And now, in an interview with People, he has addressed the incident, saying, “I’m not racist”.
“I have nothing against Black people,” he added. “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.”
He went on to say that he was “immediately sorry” in the moment and said he was not seeking forgiveness as he is “not looking for a comeback”.
“My anger was all over the place and it came through hard and fast,” he continued. “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. Crisis managers wanted me to do damage control. But as far as I was concerned, the damage was inside of me.”
In 2021, Seinfeld writer Larry Charles said that he believed Kramer would be a QAnon conspiracy theorist if the show was still being made today.
“When I thought about how Seinfeld would survive in this kind of environment and this television environment, and I look around, I think about bringing those characters to the 21st century, and… wouldn’t Kramer be… a believer in QAnon?” Charles asked.
There has been speculation over the last year that a return for the beloved ‘90s sitcom might be on the cards after lead star and co-creator Jerry Seinfeld hinted as such.
The comedian teased during a stand-up show at the Wang Theatre in Boston last October the possibility of a reworked version of the show’s finale.
Asked whether he liked the sitcom’s divisive final episode, Seinfeld replied: “Well, I have a little secret for you about the ending. But I can’t really tell it because it is secret.
“Here’s what I’ll tell you, OK, but you can’t tell anybody. Something is going to happen that has to do with that ending. Hasn’t happened yet. And just what you are thinking about, [co-creator] Larry [David] and I have also been thinking about it. So you’ll see, we’ll see.”
Both Jason Alexander and Julia Louis-Dreyfus have denied any knowledge of a potential reunion.
