Nick Cannon is set to debut his new daytime talk show, after it was briefly shelved due to comments he made that were viewed as anti-Semitic.
“It’s been a longtime dream of mine to host my own daytime talk show and that I’m able to do this in New York City, bringing daytime television back to the place that has fostered generations of talent, is very special to me,” said Cannon in a statement released Jan. 28, Variety reported.
“With this show, we’ll be uniting all aspects of entertainment in a unique way in the very place where a lot of what we know today as our culture started. I couldn’t ask for better partners than Debmar-Mercury and Fox and thank them for supporting me in this endeavor.”
Cannon was originally tapped to host the syndicated show “Nick Cannon,” which was slated to release in September 2020. However, the program was postponed after Cannon made comments during an interview with former Public Enemy rapper “Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin on a June 30 episode of his “Cannon’s Class” podcast about the history of Jewish and Black people, a broadcast that was criticized by many and labeled anti-Semitic.
“It’s never hate speech, you can’t be anti-Semitic when we are the Semitic people,” he said. “When we are the same people who they want to be. That’s our birthright.” Cannon’s comments were widely seen as ignorant and anti-Semitic.
The resulting condemnation and outrage led ViaomCBS to cut ties with the “Masked Singer” host, resulting in the cancellation of Cannon’s TV sketch show “Wild ‘N Out,” his syndicated radio show, as well as the loss of his gig on Los Angeles’ Power 106.
Cannon eventually apologized, and said that he would be taking a break from his podcast in order to reflect on his actions.
“First and foremost I extend my deepest and most sincere apologies to my Jewish sisters and brothers for the hurtful and divisive words that came out of my mouth during my interview with Richard Griffin,” he wrote on his Twitter account.
“They reinforced the worst stereotypes of a proud and magnificent people and I feel ashamed of the uninformed and naïve place that these words came from. The video of this interview has since been removed.”
As an act of contrition, Cannon met with various rabbis and religious figures in the Jewish community, including Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s associate dean. The two held a 30-minute telephone conversation during which Cannon apologized to the Jewish community. He also invited the Rabbi onto his podcast for an over hour-long interview to discuss the incident and make further amends.
“I made a lot of people mad,” Cannon told Cooper on the episode. “[I made] your community mad. I made my community mad by apologizing.”
“The core question for everybody in my community is, ‘is he sincere, is this real,’” Cooper remarked, with prompted Cannon to ask, “Do you feel I’m sincere?”
“At this point, yes,” Cooper said.
Debmar-Mercury co-presidents, Ira Bernstein and Mort Marcus, of Lionsgate’s, mentioned last year that if Cannon could convince them that he was genuinely remorseful and could recognize the true weight of his words, they would be willing to resurrect his namesake. Months later, it appeared Cannons sympathetic gestures had their effect.
“We, along with our many other strong broadcast partners, are excited to be able to bring Nick’s unique, light-hearted and entertaining style to the daytime audience starting this fall,” said Bernstein and Marcus in a statement, according to Variety.
Filmed in a Harlem studio, “’Nick Cannon’ promises to serve up a blend of celebrity interviews, comedy sketches, performances and pop culture dish,” Variety reported.
Cannon went back to his syndicated radio program in September, and with the talk show set to air, he is also anticipated to resume work with Power 106 and achieve an agreement with MTV to continue “Wild ‘N Out.”