Richards Facing Ruination Or Opportunity?
Some Hollywood types are predicting bluntly that comedian Michael Richards ruined his career Friday night when he lashed out with a string of racial slurs at two hecklers during a standup performance.
Monday night, the former "Seinfeld" star went on "The Late Show with David Letterman" and apologized, saying, "I'm really busted up over this, and I am very, very sorry to those people in the audience, the blacks, the Hispanics, whites, everyone that was there that took the brunt of that anger and hate and rage."
But is that apology enough to save Richards' career?
Media crisis expert Sally Stewart says probably not, but that doesn't mean Richards should give up.
"It certainly came across like he was, as he said, busted up about it," Stewart told The Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm Wednesday, "but it probably wasn't enough to satisfy the American people. … It was very good of him to apologize immediately and to go on the Letterman show, but, in actuality, the Letterman show is kind of a very friendly environment for a comedian. I think that, if I had been advising Michael Richards, I might have steered him more toward 60 Minutes or perhaps even a Black Entertainment Television.
"I think there's an opportunity here for him to increase his career, not ruin it, as a lot of other people in Hollywood think he has."
Click here to see photos of Michael Richards
Stewart added: "He's never going to get 100 percent of the people to embrace him, as he did years ago when he was the loveable Cosmo Kramer on 'Seinfeld' that we all know and love. But there is an opportunity here. That's always hard to remember in the middle of a crisis, but it can be an opportunity for him to build a new career, to open up a dialogue, to take a leadership position, and for America to have a very open discussion and think about the impact of words and prejudice."
She added that it "probably helps a lot" to have the likes of Jerry Seinfeld come to Richards' aid, as he did by making way for Richards during his appearance on Letterman.
It's good for Richards "even just emotionally … to know that he still has some very powerful friends who are going to stand behind him," Stewart suggested. "But it's really up to Michael Richards at this point to increase his opportunities in the future.
"He has a choice right now. He can either go down in history as the guy who said these awful, awful things and just fade away, and that's all that people will remember, or he has an opportunity to do something.
"He's been given a platform now."