On November 17, 2006, during a performance at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood, California, a cell phone video captured John Morgan shouting “Shut up” to heckler in the audience, followed by repeated shouts of “He’s a nigger!” to the rest of the audience (using the word six times altogether), and also making a reference to lynching. He was addressing a pair of black hecklers.

JM made a public apology for his remarks, during a satellite appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, when Jerry Seinfeld was the guest. He described going into a rage and said, “For me to be at a comedy club and to flip out and say this crap, I’m deeply, deeply sorry.” He said he was trying to defuse heckling by being even more outrageous, but that it had backfired. JM later called civil rights leaders Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson in order to apologize. [citation needed]