Howard Stern is speaking out after a television special from 1993 resurfaced in which the radio host appears in blackface and repeatedly used racist language.
Stern, 66, addressed the controversial performance on his SiriusXM show, saying: “The sh*t I did was f***ing crazy. I’ll be the first to admit. I won’t go back and watch those old shows; it’s like, who is that guy? But that was my shtick, that’s what I did and I own it. I don’t think I got embraced by Nazi groups and hate groups. They seemed to think I was against them too. Everybody had a bone to pick with me.” The offensive sketch is from a pay-per-view New Year’s Eve special in which Stern and his longtime co-host, Robin Quivers satirized a Friar’s Club Roast of Whoopi Goldberg in 1993 where Ted Danson, who was then dating Goldberg, had dressed in blackface.
Stern went on to say that if he had a chance to do it all over again he wouldn’t have worn blackface. “If I had to do it all over again, would I lampoon Ted Danson, a white guy in blackface? Yeah, I was lampooning him and saying, I’m going to shine a light on this. But would I go about it the same way now? Probably not. Not probably, I wouldn’t.” He did not apologize for the skit, but Stern said he and his comedy have “evolved.”
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