Halle Berry makes anti-Semitic joke on Leno

You didn’t see Halle Berry sticking her foot into her mouth on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, but the actress herself told the New York Post’s Page Six she was sorry over telling an anti-Semitic joke while taping an interview last Friday.

Halle kicked off her bit by showing off goofy pics of herself altered by Mac’s Photo Booth. Then hilarity didn’t ensue.

“She introduced the first photo by saying, ‘Here’s where I look like my Jewish cousin!’ — it was a picture of her with a huge, distorted nose,” an audience member told Page Six.” No one laughed, and Jay nervously said, ‘I’m glad you said that and not me.’ When the show aired, they cut out her ‘Jewish’ comment and added a laugh track to the bit.” (Watch the video above.)

Berry called the Post to explain herself, saying, “I so didn’t mean to offend anybody — and after the show I realized it could be seen as offensive, so I asked Jay to take it out, and he did.”

There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation, of course: “What happened was I was backstage before the show and I have three girls who are Jewish who work for me. We were going through pictures to see which ones looked silly, and one of my Jewish friends said, ‘That could be your Jewish cousin!’ And I guess it was fresh in my mind, and it just came out of my mouth.” H

ey, it’s Halle Berry ... The Juice* is willing to cut her some slack. But try to not take the advice of you gophers too much, okay?

Comments

[frank]

where is al on this one? oh yeah. he's busy dodging his taxes.

[Sasha]

Hey - I am Jewish. I find nothing wrong with her comments. My sister has a big nose too. Who cares? People are so PC nowadays.

[Mary]

Jeff Dunham is not anti semetic - he made jokes about others too. Interesting that you chose to ignore that part of it. I am Catholic and still found the routine (including the comments about Catholics) funny. I even bought the DVD. Why not just lighten the hell up?

[JB]

Berry's Jewish stereotype joke was rather tame compared to Jeff Dunham's anti-semitic overreach during his "Achmed the Dead Terrorist" routine, not to mention Mel Gibson's anti-Jewish drunken rant from a few years ago. Still, Berry generally gets a free pass; it seems that not very much is expected of her, and "The Juice" is willing to continue that tradition.

[No name necessary]

Why cut her slack, didn't she already get cut enough slack for her hit and run, or her dui and didn't she get arrested for drugs or something, I mean the list on this woman goes on and on and somehow she seems to survive it - I think she needs to be accountable. The Lohann's and Brittany's don't get any slack and they are young and stupid, Barre is older and still stupid.