Jerrod Carmichael — creator of hit NBC sitcom The Carmichael Show and one of the sharpest stand-ups out there — stopped by Late Night with Seth Meyers to unwind from his hectic schedule and share some light-hearted opinions on the N-word.
Walking out with a tumbler full of bourbon (because honestly, why not), Carmichael’s his usual affable self as he talks about an upcoming episode of his show that uses a particularly high number of slurs.
“It’s a fun word,” he starts to explain, smiling. “It is a fun word to say. Yeah, it has an intense history of hate…but it just rhymes with so many things!”
Never one to shy away from controversy (remember The Carmichael Show‘s Bill Cosby episode?), the comic also recently got into his opinions on gun control in conversation with Chelsea Handler. On her new Netflix talk show, Chelsea, Carmichael responded to praise for his sitcom with the news that his network had decided to suspend the air date of an episode involving a mass shooting (the plot centered on Carmichael himself surviving a violent incident). In explaining his motivation for writing the episode, and his disappointment that it didn’t end up airing, Carmichael revealed quite a bit about himself as a performer who truly trusts and respects his audience:
“To me what it says is that you don’t think that America is smart enough to handle real dialogue and something that reflects real family conversations and something that feels honest and true and still respects the victims…to pull that is just criminal, it does a disservice to the viewers.”
