Joy Behar Clashed With Michael Richards Over His N-Word Comments: “It’s Not Used Anymore”

Earlier in June this year, Michael Richards appeared on the popular talk show, The View, to promote his new book titled Entrances and Exits. During the show, host Joy Behar took the opportunity to target Richards about his former racial outburst that led to a major controversy. Richards also discussed his journey and provided the reasons for his controversial remarks. These remarks ultimately led to his self-imposed cancellation, as Decider reported.

During the episode, Sunny Hostin began the conversation and said, "I'm so happy that you're here and let me just start by saying I don't believe in cancel culture. I believe in consequence culture and you've paid a lot of consequences, so we understand that. So let's go to your infamous racial tirade on stage at the Laugh Factory back in 2006. We all saw that, it went viral and you were being heckled by some black audience members and you responded with racial slurs. What happened?" Recalling the incident, Richards said, "Well I'm on stage with a microphone in my hand doing an act and breaking in material."

"It's late at night and a man in the audience made an announcement that I'm not funny. He doesn't think I'm very funny and I came back - now first I must say - I'm not a normal man [laughs] I'm a comedian," he explained. He further added, "There's a lot of eccentricity going on in my kind of comedy and certainly I could have never created a character like Kramer without being slightly touched. So I went into character and I was in a comedy club environment where the N-word was used a lot and I decided I would let it loose," as reported by The Mirror. Behar, who used to be a stand-up comedian, then interrupted him.

She said, "It's not used anymore. Those days are over." In a fun way, Richards said, "For me they certainly are, yeah." Moving ahead, he said, “By the way, cancel culture, I canceled myself out … The rage just channeled into a character. I felt like I got hit, so I’m hitting back. That person went low, I’m going lower.” On the other hand, Whoopi Goldberg cheered him up as she said, “Well it is really good to see you after all these years. You know, sometimes we walk, and we step in stuff, and it happens, and it happens! And it happens to all of us. And so, you took yourself away and did a lot of work on yourself, and welcome back. That’s what I want to say. Welcome back.”

Later in the interview, host Behar was surprised to know that Richards is Italian. She then pointed out that he resembles her father, according to The Wrap. Meanwhile, Richards also spoke about his racist remarks in an interview with PEOPLE. "I was immediately sorry the moment I said it onstage," he said. "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 added. Richards also claimed, "Crisis managers wanted me to do damage control. But as far as I was concerned, the damage was inside of me."