NY Post
December 3, 2007 -- Don Imus returned to the airwaves this morning before a live studio audience, introducing a long list of cast members on his new morning show including a black woman.
Just eight months ago, Imus was forced off the radio over racist and sexist remarks he made about the Rutgers women's basketball team.
"I want to take a minute to introduce this new incarnation of "Imus in the Morning," Imus said.
His debut, on WABC-AM, completed a comeback that seemed improbable at the height of the uproar back in April over his calling the players "nappy-headed hos."
Imus' lineup of guests featured two presidential hopefuls, Democrat Chris Dodd and Republican John McCain. As he did several times in the days after the episode, Imus condemned his controversial remark last spring and said he had learned his lesson.
"I didn't see any point in going on some sort of 'Larry King' tour to offer a bunch of lame excuses for making an essentially reprehensible remark about innocent people who did not deserve to be made fun of," he said.
Every time he would get upset about the uproar in the media, Imus said, "I would remind myself that if I hadn't said what I said, then we wouldn't be having this discussion."
Again, Imus apologized to the basketball players and called the ensuing furor a "life-changing experience."
He talked about what it was like when he and his wife, Deirdre, met with the team, their coach and some of the players' parents and grandparents, for four hours the night he was fired from CBS Radio. The team members accepted Imus' apology that evening.
"I was there to save my life. I had already lost my job," he said. "They said they would never forget and I said I would never forget."
Imus' black sidekick is an Oxford-educated Texas cowgirl whose career has ranged from broadcast journalism to stand-up comedy, sources told The Post.
Karith Foster, a Harlem resident who grew up outside Dallas, was brought on by Imus to ease tension stirred up by his racist comment about the Rutgers women's basketball team, which got him booted in April, sources said.
Foster was raised in upscale Plano, Texas, which she describes on her Web site as having “the ethnic diversity of a Klan rally."
After earning a degree in broadcast journalism from Missouri's Stephens College, she went on to study at Oxford University in England before taking a reporting job at ABC.
She later moved to the production team of Barbara Walters' “The View" - where she was exposed to the world of stand-up comedy.
She was soon appearing at several top comedy clubs, including Caroline's in New York and LA's The Laugh Factory.
Foster's TV credits include NBC's “Last Comic Standing" and the original “Showtime at the Apollo."
Despite her Texas roots, “I'm really a Jewish girl from Long Island trapped in this body, which technically makes me a JA-AP [Jewish African-American Princess]," she jokes on her Web site.
“So it's not ‘talk to the hand,' but ‘talk to the manicure.'"
Imus' new show debuts today at 6 a.m. on WABC radio. A station spokesman declined comment.
December 3, 2007 -- Don Imus returned to airwaves after being fired for referring to the women's basketball team at Rutgers as "nappy-headed hos." This morning he talked about the incident, according to a transcript from Mediabistro.com:
6:20 A.M.: "I want to take a second to talk about what happened back on April 12th. ... what it means ... what it means for this program and what it means for the young women out of Rutgers.
"In thinking about what happened... I didn't see appoint in going on some Larry King tour to offer a bunch of lame excuses for making a reprehensible remark about innocent people who did not deserve to be made fun of.
"I think what happened is about what should have happened. I think one has to realize ...that you don't get to decide nor should you how the news media is going to treat you a remark you make. ...
"Every time that I got pissed off about that I reminded myself that if I hadn't said what I said then I wouldn't be having this discussion. ...
Les Moonves could not have been more honorable and decent and honest in dealing with me. ...
6:23 A.M.: "Whether you're a good person or not is completely unrelated and it doesn't give you any license to make any kind of remark you feel like making, and doesn't minimize the impact it has on who you make it about. ..."
6:25 A.M.: Describes meeting with Rutgers basketball team as close to a life-changing experience.
6:28 A.M.: "As I was talking to these young women, I realized that, other than placing in context for them who I was and that I wasn't some vicious racist and this is what we did for a living -- make fun of people -- that was so irrelevant to how they felt. ... It sounded to me as I listened to myself talk and as I looked at them, it just sounded like one lame excuse after another. ...
"They didn't think I was calling them prostitutes, but they didn't think it was funny either.
"One woman was this close to my face, just screaming. You could feel her heart break. And I realized how fortunate it was that I was fired. If I had been there apologizing and offering these excuses and still had my job, they would have thought that I was there to save my job and that may have been true. But I was there to save my life. I had already lost my job ... They forgave me, they accepted my apology and they said that they would never forget. And I said that I would never forget."
6:32 A.M.: "I analogized it to being an alcoholic and a drug addict, which I also am. If you get into recovery, which I am, for 20 some years now, you have an opportunity to be a better person and to have a better life than you ordinarily would have. And that's true in this situation because it was demonstrated to these young women that there are consequences for things you say. Would I rather have not gone through it? ... Absolutely."
6:33 A.M.: "We now have the opportunity to have a better program, to obviously diversity the cast -- I mean that just makes sense. But the program is not going to change. ... It is a great radio program. It's on a better radio station. ... I will never say anything in my lifetime that will make any of these young women at Rutgers regret or feel foolish that they accepted my apology and forgave me. And no one else will say anything on my program that will make anyone else think that I didn't deserve a second chance."
