Ted Danson said he will “apologize for the rest of my life” for appearing in blackface at a 1993 Whoopi Goldberg Friars Club roast.
“I need to and want to apologize for the rest of my life because somebody today can go on the internet and go, ‘What the fuck? Wow, I feel betrayed, I feel angry.’ And I did that,” the actor said on Wednesday’s episode of W. Kamau Bell’s Who’s With Me? podcast.
Danson’s speech at the event, which drew backlash from those in attendance and public figures like former New York City Mayor David Dinkins, took place while he and Goldberg were having an affair and included racial slurs and jokes about their sex life.
Danson said that their romance was coming to an end and he tried to get out of the roast, but the Friars Club said, “We will sue you,” Danson recalled to laughs, because they had “sold so many tickets.”
“I will explain what was going on in my head, not as an excuse,” he said.
