The 66-year-old shock jock comes under fire after an old video that shows he cracked racist jokes in minstrel-style makeup resurfaced and went viral online.
- Jun 14, 2020
AceShowbiz - Howard Stern has come under fire after a video appeared online showing the broadcaster in minstrel-style makeup, liberally using the N-word.
Amid the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests, the clip was unearthed by fans, who swiftly took to social media to call out Stern over the segment, from his "New Year's Rotten Eve Pageant" in 1993.
According to the New York Post's gossip column Page Six, the skit takes aim at Ted Danson's infamous 1993 blackface performance with then-girlfriend Whoopi Goldberg and includes highly racist jokes, such as "what do you call a black rocket scientist?," the punchline to which is the N-word.
When his audience seems shocked by the language, Stern, who plays Danson, defends himself by saying, "Whoopi wrote it" - seemingly implying the "Ghost" star was complicit in the racist vocabulary.
Fans cut the footage together with a recent appearance by Stern on U.S. TV show "The View" during which he claimed he'd never used the N-word.
The clip was first posted by controversial filmmaker Tariq Nasheed and bubbled up among right-wing Twitter users - possibly because Stern recently came out against President Donald Trump - and was eventually retweeted by Donald Trump, Jr.
Stern has yet to respond to the controversy himself.
