Comedian and actress Margaret Cho said she has forgiven former late-night TV host Jay Leno for his past anti-Asian jokes.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Cho revealed that after working on the Netflix comedy Good on Paper, she will appear on Leno’s CNBC car show Jay Leno’s Garage. When asked if she agreed to do the show before or after Leno apologized for his racist humor, she said she booked the appearance “quite a while ago” and expressed support for Leno’s contrition.
“For him to step up and take responsibility is very meaningful. I’m so pleased with his response,” Cho said. “I accept apologies.”
Leno apologized for his anti-Asian quips in March in a joint press release with Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA), an organization that had protested the jokes for almost 15 years. MANAA had threatened to organize a sponsor boycott of Leno’s upcoming Fox game show You Bet Your Life.
Most of the jokes mocked Asians as dog meat eaters, Variety reported.
“At the time I did those jokes, I genuinely thought them to be harmless,” Leno said. “I was making fun of our enemy North Korea, and like most jokes, there was a ring of truth to them.”
Leno added that he hoped he could live up to the Asian American community’s expectations in the future. MANAA, he said, was gracious in accepting his apology.
Cho, however, seems to have already moved past her friend’s controversy.
“Frankly, Asian jokes go over my head because I’ve heard so many of them,” Cho told Entertainment Weekly. “I do a noise-canceling thing with them.”
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