Hey Hey It’s Saturday host Daryl Somers has apologised to Kamahl and said he ‘deeply regrets’ humiliating the singer after he spoke out about being racially mocked on the show.
Kandiah ‘Kamahl’ Kamalesvaran, who was born in Malaysia to Tamil-Hindu parents, revealed on the weekend that he was the target of a series of racist jokes on the popular variety program.
The 86-year-old said the most offensive skit happened in 1984 when a stage hand covered his face in white powder before presenter John Blackman called out off-screen: ‘You’re a real white man now, Kamahl, you know that?’.
While Blackman fired back after the tell-all interview and asked why the singer didn’t confront him about it 37 years ago, Somers issued a heartfelt apology on Wednesday morning.
Somers is now set to host Seven’s reboot of Dancing with the Stars, after hosting the original seven seasons from 2004 to 2007. Pictured with Sonia Kruger
The 69-year-old said he was in the middle of filming Dancing With The Stars All -Stars, but wanted to acknowledge historic footage from the program ‘that people have understandably found offensive’.
‘I want to make it very clear that I and all members of the Hey Hey team do not condone racism in any form,’ he wrote on Facebook.
‘I have always considered Kamahl a friend and supporter of the show, so I deeply regret any hurt felt by him as a result of anything that took place on the program in the past.’
He said the entertainment broadcast ‘never set out to offend anyone’ and acknowledged that some skits on the show, which ran from 1971 to 1999, ‘is plainly inappropriate’ and would not be aired today.
Kandiah ‘Kamahl’ Kamalesvaran (pictured) is an Australian singer who was born in Malaysia to Tamil-Hindu parents
Pictured: A scene on Hey Hey It’s Saturday where Kamahl was doused in white powder. On Saturday, the singer said the skit left him ‘humiliated’
Pictured: TV veteran Daryl Somers’ apology to Kamahl after the singer revealed he was ‘humiliated’ repeatedly on Hey Hey It’s Saturday
Kamahl responded with a public message for Somers saying he had accepted the apology.
‘This is to say that I, Kandiah Kamalesvaran, AKA Kamahl, accept and acknowledge the apology from friend Daryl Somers, unreservedly,’ he wrote.
In his interview on Saturday, Kamahl told The Guardian: ‘There were a number of instances where I felt humiliated, but I didn’t want to raise any objections or protest about it.’
‘I kept smiling and pretending all was OK.’
While speaking about the skit in 1984, he said: ‘Friends of mine in America saw that and to this day they can’t believe that somebody would treat an artist with that amount of disrespect.’
Kamahl accepted his profile had been helped by appearing on shows such as Hey Hey, admitting he needed the exposure to build his career and popularity – though he didn’t realise what a ‘minefield’ it would be.
Last week, Somers sparked controversy when he said Hey Hey would not survive today’s ‘cancel culture’ climate.
Footage has resurfaced of Daryl Somers’ most shocking moments on classic variety show Hey Hey It’s Saturday which ran for 28 years in its first run
One comment was also made about Kamahl needing to smile so ‘we can see him’ (pictured) during the show
In one scene, Daryl Somers wore blackface as he impersonated Malaysian-born singer Kamahl
‘You probably could not get away with half the stuff you could on Hey Hey now because of the political correctness and the cancel culture,’ he told News Corp.
‘It is a shame because showbiz does not get much of a chance.’
Kamahl hit back at the remarks and said he believed some people missed the point when using the term ‘cancel culture’.
‘They’re only trying to limit unnecessarily vulgar or crude terminology or gags or whatever,’ he said.
Somers also said he wasn’t happy about the shift in public taste towards more ‘politically correct’ jokes, but accepted that the world is changing.
‘A lot of comics can’t work much because what would have been just tongue-in-cheek previously now can easily get them into trouble,’ he said.
‘I can’t say I am enamoured with it, but it is a changing world in which we live and you just have to work around things.’
The show regularly used cartoons and drawings, one of which depicted Kamahl with a bone through his nose
John Blackman worked on the show for its entire 28-year run, from 1971 to 1999 (the cast are pictured)
Following Kamahl’s interview with The Guardian, Blackman hit back at the singer on Facebook.
‘Goodness me Kamahl, 37 years and you’re still “humiliated”,’ Blackman wrote.
‘You knew where my booth was!
‘If you felt so aggrieved by my “quip” you should have had marched up to it, had a quiet word in my ear and I would have desisted from making any further “racist” remarks forever.’
While the former voice over artist conceded that he sometimes ‘cringes at what we got away with’ when looking back at old episodes, he doubled down on his remarks in a fiery tweet on Monday.
‘Kamahl joins the ranks of the Cancel Culture Club – strikes retrospectively at [Hey Hey It’s Saturday],’ Blackman wrote.
John Blackman (pictured) took to Facebook to question why Kamahl had not raised concerns with him about the comment at the time
‘John Blackman wants to know why I did not make any complaints then,’ Kamahl wrote on Twitter
He likened firing shots at HHIS to ‘shooting Bambi or fish in a barrel’, and said ‘good one, Kamahl.’
A montage of some of the most controversial Hey Hey gags involving Kamahl was shared on social media this week, drawing reactions mostly in support of the singer.
One particularly outrageous gag saw the lighting department asking Kamahl to smile so ‘we can see him’.
Another extraordinary clip to since reemerge shows a much younger Somers wearing blackface and impersonating Kamahl.
‘You were born and bred in Sydney?’ In another, Somers (right) appeared to make fun of a third-generation Chinese-Australian audience member (centre) as he introduced her on camera
Somers darkened his skin with makeup and wore a wig as he performed with the singer on stage.
Other gags depicted cartoon versions of him with a bone through his nose, and as a pair of bright white teeth against a black background.
In one scene an off-screen voice pondered whether his new album might ‘go black’ instead of gold.
One clip showed Somers appeared to make fun of a third-generation Chinese-Australian audience member as he introduced her on camera.
‘I’m originally from Sydney,’ the woman said.
Somers then asked: ‘You were born and bred in Sydney? I thought you were going to say your background is from overseas somewhere. So no one in the family speaks Chinese?’
Last year, Somers was called out for performing Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World in blackface on the show in the 1980s.
Another incident in 2009 involved a comedy troupe dressed up as the Jackson Five in blackface for Hey Hey’s regular Red Faces talent show segment.
American singer Harry Connick Jr. was a guest judge on the program and gave the performance a score of zero, saying he never would have appeared on the show if he had known it would involve blackface.
Somers apologised to Harry at the end of the live segment, saying: ‘We may have offended you with that act and I deeply apologise on behalf of all of us.
‘Because I know that to your countrymen, that’s an insult to have a blackface routine like that on the show, so I do apologise to you.’
Kamahl did not blame host Somers and implied he wasn’t to blame, saying he was a ‘bystander’ who neither ‘encouraged nor stopped’ the jokes.
Asked whether he thought Hey Hey could return, Kamahl carefully told The Guardian he was in favour of ‘clever’ and ‘witty’ humour, but ‘if it’s c**p, maybe we can do without it’.
A new season of 20 episodes was commissioned in 2010, but the variety program did not return in 2011.