The View’s Joy Behar confronts Seinfeld star Michael Richards over infamous N-word rant

Seinfeld star Michael Richards has once again apologised for his infamous racial rant 18 years ago, but one TV host was quick to call him out on it.

Joy Behar reminded Michael Richards on an episode of The View that the comedy world has rapidly changed.

The Seinfeld star stopped by the daytime talk show, where he opened up about his racist outburst against a group of Black hecklers at a comedy show in 2006, reports Decider.

“Well, I’m onstage with a microphone in my hand doing an act, breaking in material, it’s late at night,” he explained when co-host Sunny Hostin asked him what happened that fateful night.

“A man in the audience made an announcement. I’m not funny — he doesn’t think I’m very funny. I came back.”

The View co-host Joy Behar called out Michael Richards for using the N-word.

Richards continued, “First, I must say, I’m not a normal man … There’s a lot of eccentricity going on in my kind of comedy. Certainly, I could’ve never created a character like Kramer without being slightly touched. So I went into character. I work in a comedy club environment where the N-word is used a lot. And I decided I would let it loose.”

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Richards got emotional as he recalled the infamous incident during an appearance on The View.

Behar, a fellow comedian, noted that the racial slur is “not used anymore” in comedy, as “those days are over.”

“For me, they certainly are,” Richards replied, to which Behar said, “For everybody.”

After Richards’ rant went viral, he became somewhat of a recluse.

“By the way, cancel culture, I cancelled myself out … The rage just channelled into a character,” he told the panel. “I felt like I got hit, so I’m hitting back. That person went low, I’m going lower.”

Richards is best known for playing Kramer on Seinfeld.

Richards with his Seinfeld co-stars (left to right): Jason Alexander, Julia Louis Dreyfus and Jerry Seinfeld.

He added that he’s still “very emotional” about the incident — even after 18 years.

Richards, whose memoir Entrances and Exits came out today, recently looked back on his racist tirade in an interview with People.

“Anger is quite a force. But it happened,” he said. “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.”

He added, “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.”

This article originally appeared in Decider and was reproduced with permission