Comedian Howard Stern responded to backlash after a clip of him wearing blackface and using the N-word was re-shared by Donald Trump Jr. on Twitter.
The video resurfaced Thursday after a social media user clipped together a past appearance by Stern on “The View” where he denied using the n-word and his blackface sketch from 1993, according to a report published Monday by Deadline.
I guess Blackface Matters pic.twitter.com/RUA74PUQXJ
— Tariq Nasheed ???????? (@tariqnasheed) June 11, 2020
“The sh*t I did was f*cking crazy,” Stern said, according to Deadline. “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 big headline is this, and this is my fear in all of this,” Stern continued. “I was able to change my approach, able to change my life and change how I communicated. 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.” (RELATED: Trump Jr. Snaps At Howard Stern: He’s Become ‘Hollywood Howard’)
Stern’s radio host partner Robin Quivers defended Stern and claimed the comedian isn’t a racist.
“I have listened to Stern since he first got to New York in the 1980s, and he certainly has evolved from the moment he described, when it was anything goes,” Quivers said. “And you can feel the influence of his psychotherapy sessions in the long interviews he does with artists. Some humor on the SiriusXM show still crosses the line, clearly, but he has long been a voice for inclusion and for women’s rights and the LGBTQ cause.”