Comedian Michael Richards — best known for his role as Cosmo Kramer on the '90s comedy sitcom Seinfeld — has shown his emotions still run high while talking about his memoir, Entrances and Exits.
Richards, 74, said his book shared never-before-told stories from his life, including opening up about his mothers' dementia and being diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2019.
The Emmy award-winning actor and comedian told Breakfast he was "sort of back, in a sense".
"I live a very reclusive life, so the book which has taken me four years to put together has certainly drawn me back into the community, and it's fantastic."
He said a chapter of the book discusses a bizarre outburst in 2006 when Richards was filmed shouting racial epithets at audience members during a stand-up show in Los Angeles.
"Full reflection, getting into myself and the reasons behind the nature of anger that took me for… a ride indeed… for years. And just coming to terms with myself."
He said co-star Jerry Seinfeld wrote the foreword for the book and had been a wonderful friend to him "all the way through", including encouraging Richards to apologise in November, 2006.
"Jerry saw I was in trouble, and that was his suggestion. I came out with an outward apology and then I took off for an inner apology… How am I going to forgive myself? And that took years of coming into understanding and that allowed me to come into forgiveness from here."
He shared in the book that there was "a lot of doubt" in his casting of Kramer and Seinfeld always vouched for his decisions "right down to the shoelaces".
"They wanted an eccentric next-door-neighbour, so I certainly gave 'em that."
He said he only recently sat down and watched some episodes of the nine-season show with his son.
"I had to keep moving, episode to episode so I couldn't dwell on the past."
Richards wiped away tears after Breakfast presenter Jenny-May Clarkson read aloud from the final passage of the memoir.
"It is absolutely beautiful, it is a wonderful book," she said.
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