Ted Danson said he will "apologize for the rest of his life" for the 1993 Whoopi Goldberg impersonation he performed while disguised as a black woman.
On W. Kamau Bell's podcast "Who's With Me?", the "Cheers" and "The Good Place" actor recounted an incident that occurred at New York's Friars Club while he was romantically involved with Goldberg. Danson's performance at the private event included racial slurs and jokes about the couple's sex life, sparking backlash from both those in attendance and public figures such as David N. Dinkins, New York City's first Black mayor.
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«"I need and want to apologize for the rest of my life because today someone can go online and say, 'What the hell? Wow, I feel betrayed, I'm angry.' And I did," Danson said.
He admitted that their romance was ending and they had tried to avoid attending the celebratory dinner, but it was impossible because the Friars Club was "overbooked.".
«I felt like I was standing in front of one of the most outrageous, funniest Black women in the world. And I was supposed to make fun of her, and I’m not a stand-up comedian; I can’t run with bulls. So I was like, „Oh my God, what am I going to do?“„ Danson said. “And then I was like, „Well, I could do performance art.„ I looked at all these tapes and I was like, «If I were a Black woman, I could say all these outrageous things. But I’m not a Black woman;“ and then it was like, »I’m going to do this in makeup, and whether it’s funny or not, it’s going to be like, ‘Now I have permission.’ … I thought, ‘I can do this.’”.
Danson expressed regret for thinking "this white guy had anything valuable to say about race and race relations," calling it "so arrogant and stupid of me." He said he realized immediately during the satirical performance that he was wrong. "Within 20 seconds, I thought, 'I've stuck my finger in a socket.' … I thought I was making a satire about mixed race, and I thought it was provocative.".
Danson said that for a "long time" he justified his actions by saying his intentions were not malicious, but in a conversation with Bell he said he now realized that "it doesn't matter.".
«"Your intentions don't matter. What matters is the impact you have on people," he said. "And if you haven't thought about that, you need to. I thought I could compete with the powers that be, but I couldn't. It was stupid, it wasn't for me, it was wrong, and it hurt... So I apologize again to everyone listening for being arrogant enough to think I had anything to offer.".
Danson also apologized to Goldberg again for bringing up the story again, saying, "Poor Whoopi Goldberg has had to defend me all these years, sweetly and gracefully. So the last thing she probably wants is to be put in that situation again.".
At the time, Goldberg defended Danson to the press, claiming she had written much of the material herself. "We weren't trying to be politically correct. We were just trying to make fun of ourselves," she said in a statement.
A representative for Goldberg did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Variety about the comment.
Watch Danson's full interview on "Who's With Me?" below.
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