Michael Richards’ racist outburst, explained

There was a time when Michael Richards was one of the most famous men on the planet. After small character roles here and there in various TV shows and movies, the actor finally had his breakthrough when Seinfeld hit the airwaves in the early ’90s.

His character, Cosmo Kramer, would become a pop culture icon. His incredible physical comedy and timing earned him accolade after accolade. He was a bonafide superstar, until one night he said some things so racist during a stand-up set that his career disappeared overnight. Let’s take a look at what happened.

Richards, 74, started his career as a stand-up comedian. His first break was on a cable special for Billy Crystal, and then he was cast on a Saturday Night Live-type show on ABC called Fridays. From there, his career started to heat up. During his nine years on Seinfeld, he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series three times. After Seinfeld was over, he had a blank check to do whatever he wanted. In 2000, he starred in The Michael Richards Show, but it failed to catch any heat.

After that, Richards returned to stand up. The “incident” happened in 2006, but it’s being viewed with fresh eyes now because Richards is talking about it again, after he appeared on the red carpet for the Jerry Seinfeld-directed Pop Tart movie Unfrosted. The appearance got a lot of media attention, as he’s been out of the spotlight for almost 20 years. However, he’s also promoting a new book called Entrances and Exits, so it makes sense that he’s trying to drum up some publicity.

“I’m not looking for a comeback,” he told People Magazine. He also said he was “immediately sorry the moment” he said the slur on stage on that fateful November 2006 night. That’s a tough one to buy, if only because in the video he says it multiple times and talks about, well, let’s get to that.

Killing your career 101

The video is grainy, even for 2006 standards. It’s shaky but you get a full sense of what’s going on, albeit without the context of what happened before. It begins with a black screen and Richards yelling, “Shut up! 50 years ago We’d have you upside down with a f**cking fork up your ass.” Richards is wearing a salmon or red colored shirt and screaming. He’s pointing to someone off-camera, probably on the balcony. He is incensed. The anger is palpable, uncomfortable, and shockingly real. Some people laugh, some people are audibly gasping. Richards walks to the other side of the stage for a moment but then dives right back in: “You can talk, you can talk, you can talk! You’re brave now motherf***er!”

Now at this point, he might have been OK had he not continued to berate the person off-screen. He could’ve chalked it up to a bad set or a bad night. It’s hard to believe, but here’s where things get really bad. Richards starts yelling to “throw his ass out” then he uses the N-word. And not just once. Many times! He’s pointing and screaming but facing the audience, side-stepping rapidly like a crab.

He’s all in. Someone says, “Oh my God.” He says the slur two more times, continuing to point. This might be the moment Richards begins to realize he has gone too far. He starts to “ooh” and doubles down in a way. “Alright you see?” he says. “This shocks you. It shocks you… To see what’s buried beneath, you stupid motherf***ers.” What does that even mean? As audience members expressed their outrage Richards yelled “that’s what happens when you interrupt the white man!”

Once TMZ released the video the backlash was instant. There was literally no way to defend it. Richards appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman on the Monday following the incident, looking morose and aware, and said he was not a racist. It didn’t work.

Now, he’s apologizing again. He said that his “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 said he was asked to do damage control but that the “damage was inside of me.”

Where has he been for the last 17 years? In “deep analysis.” He said he was always plagued by insecurity and didn’t feel that he deserved any of the accolades. Fame, he said, made it worse. He reiterates one more time: “I’m not a racist. … I felt put down. I wanted to put him down.”

Time will tell if the world is ready to forgive him.