Before Howard Stern’s interview with Kamala Harris, a video showing him using the N-word and dressing in blackface during a spoof has surfaced, inciting anger. In the 1993 artwork, Stern, 70, is seen repeatedly uttering the racial slur while wearing black face paint and white lips.
The skit was a parody of Ted Danson’s notorious blackface performance from the same year, which he did with Whoopi Goldberg, his then-girlfriend. After issuing an earlier apology for the video, Stern’s image has surfaced on social media just before his scheduled meeting with the Vice President today, leading some viewers to call him ‘disgusting’. Stern portrays Danson in blackface while Robin Quivers, his sidekick, questions him. Punchlines including the N-word make up the replies.
As the audience reacts in shock to his use of the word, Stern defends himself by saying, “Whoopi wrote that.” “Disgusting,” one irate viewer wrote on X. “I have seen this over the years. Isn’t it something that Stern gets a pass because he is a leftist?” “This right here should have been the end of. Howard Stern he’s undeniably too comfortable in this gross vile skit, if anyone belongs cancelled it’s Stern, a pig,” another commented. “How do they get away with that, unbelievable, and that isn’t even funny, not one little bit. It’s actually pretty despicable and disgusting,” a third viewer wrote.
‘Why would Kamala Harris go on the Howard Stern show? If she does go on the show with Howard Stern, that’ll tell America everything you need to know about Kamala Harris,’ one person wrote. Stern’s interview with Harris forms part of a media blitz by the Vice President, which will also see her appear on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and The View. Previously, Harris has sat down for interviews in battleground states, including radio and podcasts. But with Stern her audience is likely to be much larger, given his two million YouTube subscribers.
In the drawing, Stern, 70, is seen repeatedly repeating the racial slur while wearing black face paint and white lips. Stern previously apologized over the footage and stated he was ‘lampooning’ a similar video of Ted Danson in blackface performing with then-girlfriend Whoopi Goldberg
The interview is set to air on Howard’s SiriusXM channel, Howard 100, and will be replayed throughout the week. Harris will then travel west, with planned stops in Nevada and Arizona ahead of early voting.
Stern previously addressed the controversy surrounding the clip, which Donald Trump Jr. retweeted in 2020. “The sh** I did was f***ing crazy,” Stern admitted, according to Deadline. “I’ll be the first to say it. I don’t watch those old shows; it’s like, who is that guy?”
“That was my shtick, what I did, and I own it,” he continued. “I don’t think I was embraced by Nazi or hate groups. They probably thought I was against them too. Everyone had something against me.”
Stern then shared his main concern: “I was able to change my approach and how I communicated. If I could do it again, would I still lampoon Ted Danson, a white guy in blackface? I was trying to shed light on it, but would I do it the same way now? No, I wouldn’t.”
Trump Jr. had retweeted the clip, captioning it: “Yikes! NSFW: Howard Stern says N-word too many times during awful blackface impression that should have Libs yelling ‘CANCEL!’ Tuesday at 1:00 PM on Howard 100 on SiriusXM, Stern is scheduled to premiere his conversation with the Vice President.
Stern retaliated, calling Trump Jr.’s attention to the video “crazy” during a time when Black Lives Matter demonstrations and the coronavirus were at their height. “Am I a villain? “I don’t believe so,” Stern remarked. Donald Trump, who was on my show 27 times, didn’t believe that. It was hosted by Donnie Junior. He claimed to have gone Hollywood and remarked on TV, “I’m really disappointed in Howard, he’s changed.”Which one is it? Would you like me to mock Ted Danson while wearing blackface? I’ve evolved… I recall how eager Donald Jr. was to snap a photo with me. “Dude, feel free to worry about me if you’re the president of the United States.”