Ted Danson apologises for blackface photo as he opens up about affair with Whoopi Goldberg
Cheers favourite Ted Danson has reiterated his regret over a blackface comedy stunt in the early 1990s.
More than 30 years on from that career-threatening mistake, Danson appeared on the latest episode of podcast Who's With Me? with W. Kamau Bell this week, where the controversial topic reared its head.
"I know what was in my heart so I have no problem talking about this," noted the 78-year-old, who's been married to Oscar-winning actress Mary Steenburgen since 1995.
Incase you haven't heard, Danson performed a 'comedy roast' of Whoopi Goldberg at The Friars Club in New York City, fresh from their own personal love affair.
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But this wasn't for a lack of backing out; they'd recently dissolved this secret relationship (Danson cheating on second wife Cassandra Coates at the time) and thought it best to request a cancellation of the hyped-up show.
The bosses of Friars refused, happy to take the matter to court if they didn't fulfil their contract - 'because they had sold so many tickets', Danson told podcaster Bell.
"I need to and want to apologise for the rest of my life because somebody, today, can go on the internet and go 'What the f***! Wow, I feel betrayed, I feel angry,' whatever, and I did that."
On that initial Friars rebuttal that kept him in check, Danson recalled of his response: "So my brain was going, 'OK, here's one of the most outrageous, funny, Black women in the world' at that point and I'm supposed to be roasting her and I'm not a standup.
"I can't run with the bulls. I'm an actor at best. If the material's funny I can be funny.
"I thought, 'Well I can do performance theatre...' so I looked at all these tapes and it's like, well if I were Black I could say all these outrageous things. Then my mind went, 'I will do it in Blackface and that will be funnier.'"
Danson, whose other bingeworthy credits include The Good Place, Fargo season 2 and Netflix's A Man on the Inside, claimed that his routine was a direct retaliation to the media's despicable reaction to his relationship with Goldberg.
He explained: "The press and the news - not the healthy news - were going after us; mixed race, an affair, it couldn't be because they liked each other or saw something in each other, it had to be sex. It had to be just pure sex, that's the only reason for a relationship like this.
"So my comedy, in trying to address our relationship... I didn't realise was getting darker and darker, or angrier inside of me. It had a real f***ing edge to it."
Blind to how it would inevitably be perceived by the audience, the 'stupid and entitled' Danson believed he could 'pull this off' because 'there's no-one whiter than me in the world'.
Within 20 seconds up on stage, the room at Friars Club was divided.
"It was like I'd just stuck my finger in a light socket and I went, 'OK, 20 percent of the crowd (and this was a packed house) gets this and thinks it's pretty cool and gets it. 30 percent gets it and f***ing hates it. 50 percent didn't get it and f***ing hated it and hated me', and I kept going.
"I thought I was doing a satire on race relationships."
33 years later, he's still pretty haunted by the whole experience.
Topics: Celebrity, Whoopi Goldberg, Podcast, Entertainment
Dan Seddon