Thanks for posting this (not meant sarcastically; I honestly wouldn't have thought to look for the clip)!!! I remember watching the first airing and being completely speechless when that just fell out of her mouth like that. Considering the tone of some of her later appearances (tbh, she comes off as someone who has lost their mind), in retrospect I wonder if that comment was just one more symptom of a drugs-addled brain that was becoming less and less reliable. Although I was totally mortified at the time, now I have a considerable amount of forgiveness towards her. It wasn't easy to see from a fan's POV until it was way, way too late, but it seems that she really toasted her brain with drugs. Listen to some of her later stuff where she talks about religious topics; she was literally out of her damned mind. Sad.

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I'm not angry or harboring hatred about it, but what she said was racist and wrong regardless of how long ago it was. I'll always believe that the crass remark is what led to her downfall, because everyone stopped supporting her after she made the racist remark. But if I were to revere her now just because she recently passed away, I would be hypocrite.

Not defending her but How angry should we be ?
It was 30 years ago and she just died. No need for dancing on her grave

Making bad jokes is one thing, but calling black people gorillas is blatant and obvious racism. Yes, I understand she was gorgeous woman, and many of us men at times are swayed by female surface beauty, but defending her for that remark is just blind devotion and in my opinion unintelligent.

It was in poor taste but people need to chill out at times and stop being so thin skinned. She joked about her own background and Who hasn't made a joke at the wrong place and time by mistake

What it was about was that she thought that she wasn't black because her mother was white. Like a lot of so-called biracial people, she thought that being mixed was a race category unto itself, and of course it really doesn't work that way.

So I read the article in Jet and Vanity to me acts the same way when a white person says something racially insensitive. Very oblivious. I know her Dad wasn't involved in her life but to mention on National TV he's black and a gorilla was in poor taste.
If she just said he was a Gorilla there would be no problem, but to say Gorilla and Black was terrible. Where was her PR Team at???? Her manager????

I was in grammar school at the time this all went down. I do remember it being referenced on a syndicated radio show I used to listen to.
I know it was thirty years ago and I definitely took the time to listen to that part of the interview three times. I was like, "Does she realize what she's saying?!" There's no excusing it or justifying it because its on tape.
I still like her acting and her singing, but Vanity should've kept that to herself.

After she made that remark, it caused an uproar. Just read this archived Jet article:
http://books.google.com/books?id=2bMDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58&dq=vanity+%2B+gorilla&source=bl&ots=sFA1QiLyLw&sig=MckY3DKXSC7o2i13P4obWtwEMJ8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Mx76U6nZOI6MyASQloC4Bw&ved=0CGoQ6AEwDA#v=onepage&q=vanity %2B gorilla&f=false
A lot of black peoplemyself includedlost respect and admiration for her and her records stopped selling. I always believed that this was what ruined her career, more so than drug abuse.