Some actors fade away after their breakout hits, and some have a precise moment when their careers end. Michael Richards—who won three Emmys playing Kramer on Seinfeld—undoubtedly falls into the latter category. In 2006, long after the sitcom went off the air, Michael Richards was back on the stand-up circuit, just as he had started his career. Perhaps ironically, that’s how he ended it, too.
In November of that year, Michael Richards launched into a tirade filled with racist and disgusting rhetoric, the video leak of which sealed his fate. Nearly 20 years later, he reflects on that moment and what he was experiencing while on stage at the Laugh Factory. “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.”
As he continued telling People, “Crisis managers wanted me to do damage control. But as far as I was concerned, the damage was inside of me.” Friend Jerry Seinfeld also went on damage control, inviting Michael Richards via satellite to address the American public on The Late Show, an incredibly awkward situation that was met with laughs from the audience, who was subsequently chastised by Seinfeld.
As for that night, Michael Richards said, “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…[I’m] learning and healing. Healing and learning. But life is always an up and a down. I continue to work through the day and the night, the light and the dark that I am.”
Whether you want to pin the Michael Richards incident as part of the so-called Seinfeld Curse or a moment of snap judgment gone way overboard, the actor/comedian has been pretty much out of the spotlight since, with really only a failed namesake sitcom and some minimal work for Seinfeld and Larry David.
Michael Richards’s upcoming memoir, Entrances and Exits, will discuss this and more. It will be released next month.
Do you think Michael Richards should be forgiven for the 2006 Laugh Factory incident? Let us know how you feel in the comments below.