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Jimmy Kimmel has apologised for his past use of blackface in comedy sketches, after facing weeks of criticism.
In a statement released on Tuesday (June 23), the US comedian said he was sorry “to those who were genuinely hurt or offended by the makeup I wore of the words I spoke.”
The chat show host had previously used blackface to impersonate celebrities such as NBA star Karl Malone and Oprah Winfrey in resurfaced clips from The Man Show, a Comedy Central series he featured in from 1999 to 2003.
Kimmel explained that the impersonation of Malone had previously begun life as a radio skit on Los Angeles’ KROQ, before he employed blackface to bring it to TV.
“We hired makeup artists to make me look as much like Karl Malone as possible. I never considered that this might be seen as anything other than an imitation of a fellow human being, one that had no more to do with Karl’s skin colour than it did his bulging muscles and bald head,” wrote Kimmel.
His apology came after a podcast episode from 2013 was rediscovered, in which he admitted to imitating Snoop Dogg on a 1996 comedy Christmas album, which sees him using the N-word multiple times.
Statement from @jimmykimmel pic.twitter.com/8eBDG5Kcm8
— Yashar Ali
(@yashar) June 23, 2020
The track, which was obtained by Fox News, hears Kimmel rapping about “a fat n***** in a sleigh giving s*** away”, and a “n***** in the manger”.
Kimmel’s apology went on: “I’ve done dozens of impressions of famous people, including Snoop Dogg, Oprah, Eminem, Dick Vitale, Rosie and many others. In each case I thought of them as impersonations of celebrities and nothing more.”
He added: “I believe that I have evolved and matured over the last twenty-plus years, and I hope that is evident to anyone who watches my show. I know that this will not be the last I hear of this and that it will be used again to quiet me.
“I love this country too much to allow that. I won’t be bullied by those who feign outrage to advance their oppressive and genuinely racist agendas.”
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He also denied that a recently announced summer break was linked to the controversy, and said it had been planned for over a year.
Kimmel’s apology came shortly after four episodes of 30 Rock were pulled from streaming services at the request of creator Tina Fey due to their use of blackface.
It was the latest in a long line of shows to be edited online due to criticism around their use of blackface.
Over the past month, one of Fawlty Towers’ most famous episodes was removed from a streaming service due to racial slurs and the repeated use of the N-word, while Matt Lucas and David Walliams’ sketch comedy shows Little Britain and Come Fly With Me from streaming platforms over their use of blackface.
Channel 4 has also removed episodes of Bo’ Selecta after creator Leigh Francis apologised for his caricatures of black people in the show, while an episode of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, which sees two characters in blackface, has been removed from Netflix.
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