‘America’s Got Talent’: Howie Mandel offers up dual apologies over bulimia joke

While we touched on this briefly in our “America’s Got Talent” review tonight, the fact that Howie Mandel’s joke on bulimia has taken social media somewhat by storm merits at least a little more discussion.

For those who missed the actual incident, here it is in context. After a performance tonight by the Professional Regurigitator, whose act involves him ingesting things and then throwing them back up in interesting ways, Mandel joked that he had found a way more or less to make bulimia entertaining. (We’re paraphrasing here.) The backlash was quick, and we do feel for those who were offended. We do also feel in a way for the Regurgitator, given that in a way his performance could be associated by some with a comment that has no connection to him whatsoever. It’s clear that he is meant to be sort of a magic / comedy act not meant to be taken seriously.

Howie’s apology on air came after a performance from Daniela Mass; meanwhile, he also wrote the post below on Twitter around the same time.

Did Howie handle this the right way after making the comment? Probably. You cannot go back and undo what you said, but he did issue a mea culpa just a single commercial break after it happened, and chose to apologize and two different forms. It doesn’t seem like he meant any actual harm, and that this was just a case of someone, hired to be funny in tiny soundbytes on a reality TV competition, pushing too far on a joke. It’s better to get out in front of the problem and try to make it right before allowing things to build overnight and have to address the issue on another show.

You can view our full review of tonight’s “America’s Got Talent” episode over at the link here. Also, you can sign up now in the event you want some other TV updates on everything we cover, sent right to you via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: NBC.)