Seinfeld Actor Reacts To Controversial Career-Ending Meltdown Decades Later

Michael Richards is currently in the process of doing a press tour for his new memoir, Entrances and Exits. The book, titled after his Seinfeld character’s iconic motif of blasting in and out of doors with the vigor of a sugar-high toddler, reveals a number of fascinating and depressing truths about the disgraced comedian’s life.

According to Richards, his famous 2006 outburst can be traced to his deeply-rooted anger issues, as well as a sexual assault that he experienced in his youth.

In case you’re lucky enough to have missed the story about Michael Richards’ meltdown, be sure to avoid the video of the interaction, as it’s genuinely one of the most vitriolic explosions of hate committed to the stage in the 21st century.

As the story goes, Richards was on stage at the Laugh Factory to perform stand-up comedy, when he was heckled by a group of black audience members.

Instead of responding with some classic stand-up crowd-work, a few silly quips, or even a demand for security to remove the rowdy patrons, Michael Richards saw fit to scream the N word at the top of his lungs several times.

He threatened physical violence upon the hecklers. Needless to say, this moment completely derailed Richards’ career, and defined the next decade or so of the comedian’s life.

For the last 18 years, Richards and his Seinfeld associates have been made to answer for the bizarre and shocking outburst, though there is obviously no excuse for his behavior.

Now, Michael Richards has explained that, after years of therapy, he’s finally unpacked what caused him to snap that evening, even going so far as to claim that he intentionally cancelled himself because he couldn’t handle the pressures of being in the spotlight.

While discussing his underlying anger issues, the Cosmo Kramer thespian also revealed that he has been privately fighting prostate cancer since 2018.

While this is the first time that Michael Richards has spoken so candidly about his on-stage meltdown, this is not the first time the comedian has ever referenced the event. Richards previously claimed that he used the foul language as a means of shock humor, hoping that the audience would be so surprised that they couldn’t help but laugh at it.

Now, Richards seems to recognize that his issues were much deeper than that, in a way that even he didn’t understand until he sought years of professional help.

Michael Richards also made a humorous reference to the event during a 2009 episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm while playing a fictionalized version of himself. In the episode, Seinfeld creator Larry David attempts to launch a reunion special for the beloved NBC sitcom, but encounters a number of speed bumps along the way.

While filming on the NBC lot, Richards gets into a heated confrontation with J.B. Smoove’s Leon, eventually shouting at him, “if only there were a horrible name that I could call you that would make you as angry as I am!”

Predictably, crowds begin to form, and passers-by start filming the interaction on their cell phones. As far as anyone can tell, this seems to be yet another instance of Michael Richards unloading onto an unsuspecting black man, causing the actor to recoil in realization, and storm off in a fit of embarrassment.

While some fans felt that this scene lacked sincerity and made light of the incident, others appreciated that Richards could maintain a sense of humor about the lowest moment of his professional life.

While Michael Richards’ legacy may never recover from the Laugh Factory meltdown, it seems as though the actor is finally prepared to move on from the incident. There’s no telling what he plans to do next, but we can firmly check stand-up comedy off the list forever.