Actor Ted Danson apologized for his 1993 blackface performance during the roast of Whoopi Goldberg, whom he was dating at the time.
Danson expressed his regret about the stunt during an episode of W. Kamau Bell’s new podcast Who’s with Me? First, Danson apologized to Goldberg for feeling like she had to “defend” him throughout the years.
“The last thing she probably wants to do is have [to] be put in this position again,” he said.
“I will explain what was going on in my head, not as an excuse,” he said. “I would like to address this is and apologize forever. I know what was in my heart. So, I have no problem talking about this, but I need to and want to apologize for the rest of my life because somebody today can go on the internet, you’re right, and go, ‘What the fuck? Wow. I feel betrayed. I feel angry and whatever.’ And I did that.”
Danson said that he and Goldberg’s relationship was nearing its end and they were unable to get out of doing the roast at the Friars Club.
“So my brain was going, ‘Okay, here is one of the most outrageous, funny, Black women in the world at that point. I’m supposed to be roasting her. And I’m not a standup. I can’t run with the bulls,’ ” he said, adding he decided to “performance theater.”
Danson said watching the black comedians made him think that if he were black, he would be able to “say all these outrageous things.”
Danson said he wanted to address some of the cruelty that some people expressed about he and Whoopi’s relationship, suggesting that they were in it for sexual reasons.
“It couldn’t be because they liked each other or saw something in each other. . . . It had to be just pure sex, that’s the only reason for a relationship like this,” he said of the attacks.
While Danson did run the bit by Whoopi and did rehearse it for months, he ultimately found that the performance did not land.
“20% of the crowd gets this and thinks it’s pretty cool and gets it. 30% of the crowd gets it and fucking hates it. 50% of the crowd didn’t get it and fucking hated it and hated me,” he said. “And I kept going.”
Danson thought the performance would have stayed in the room, but the controversy already hit the public before the event finished.
“I am forever apologetic,” the Cheers star said. “. . . The other thing I used to say for the longest time, ‘I knew what my intention was. My intention was love.’ It doesn’t matter. Your intentions do not matter. The impact you have on people is what matters. And if you haven’t thought through that, then you need to.”
“I thought I could run with the big boys and I couldn’t, and it was stupid and it was not my place and it was wrong and it was hurtful,” he added. “I apologize again to anyone who’s listening that I was arrogant enough to think that I had something to offer.”
In 2020, left-wing radio legend Howard Stern faced fire after video clip emerged of him in blackface and using the N-word in a skit in which Stern was replicating Danson’s blackface performance with his then-girlfriend Whoopi Goldberg.