ONE of the best-loved comedians in the United States is fighting to save his career after an astonishing on-stage outburst in which he launched a tirade of racial abuse at two black hecklers.
Michael Richards, who played Kramer in the long-running sitcom Seinfeld, repeatedly screamed the word "nigger" at the two men during a stand-up routine at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Hollywood.
The outburst was caught on home video, posted o
n the internet and watched by millions, prompting a hand-wringing apology from the subdued Emmy-winning actor in an appearance on David Letterman's nationally televised late-night chat show.
"I got heckled, I took it badly, I went into a rage and said some pretty nasty things to some African-Americans, some trash talk," said Richards, 57. "I'm really busted up over this and I'm very, very sorry to those people in the audience, the blacks, the Hispanics, everyone who took the brunt of that anger and hate and rage and how it came through. I'm not a racist, that's what's so insane about this."
The incident has parallels in film star Mel Gibson's anti- Jewish rant against police officers in July, when he was being arrested for drink driving. As Gibson found with his subsequent alienation, the American public does not easily forgive Hollywood performers who deliver racial insults.
"I think it's a career ruiner for him," said Michael Levine, a veteran publicist who has worked with a number of leading American comedians. "It's going to be a long road back for him, if at all."
Richards appeared distracted and confused as he made his apology on the Letterman show. His appearance came at the request of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, who was on the show to promote this week's launch on DVD of the seventh season of Seinfeld, which ran from 1989 to 1998.
"For me to be in a comedy club and flip out and say this crap, I'm deeply, deeply sorry," Richards said. "I'm hearing your audience laugh and I'm not even sure if this is where I should be addressing the situation," he added as some in the Letterman studio, clearly unprepared for the sobriety of the apology, began to chuckle.
Seinfeld, who said he was "sick" over his former colleague's outburst, snapped at the audience to be quiet.
During his comedy club act, Richards was interrupted by the hecklers and immediately turned on them. "Fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a f****** fork up your a**," he shouted in an apparent reference to segregation-era lynchings of blacks in the US.
One person yelled, "That was uncalled for" and another accused him of being a wash-up, with no career once Seinfeld finished.
"Freedom of speech has its limitations and I think Michael Richards found those limitations," said Paul Rodriguez, a comedian who performed at the club on the same night.
Ray Hanania, a Palestinian-born stand-up comedian and newspaper columnist agreed. "Richards was wrong to use the 'N' word, but I don't believe he did it because he is a racist. I think he did it because it is in the character of his Seinfeld act to be 'crazy' not just in actions but in deeds," he said.
