Artie Lange
Comedian Artie Lange reportedly tried to be funny after his race-based fantasy about Cari Champion. Reuters

Comedian Artie Lange tweeted about an apparent sexual fantasy where he would be a slave owner and ESPN correspondent Cari Champion is the slave. The “First Take” star has not responded to his Twitter rant, but the comedian’s appearance on “@Midnight” has since been canceled, according to him.

ESPN has responded to the race-based Twitter comments about their station’s moderator. "His comments were reprehensible and no one should be subjected to such hateful language," the network said in a statement on Wednesday, according to Sports Illustrated. "They objectify and demean one of our valued employees under the thin guise of ‘comedy’ and are offensive to all of us. We will not dignify them with any other comment."

Lange reacted to the criticism he received in a series of tweets. “This observation came while I was watching one of my favorite TV shows ESPNs First Take. I also noticed she was black. I then thought it would be funny to tweet JOKES about that observation,” he said, in part.

While Lange would refuse to apologize to the masses, he did want to say sorry to Champion if she was offended by his comments.” Let me say to Cari Champion if this hurt u in any way I'm sorry,” he said. “I'm a comedian. Sometimes I'm funny! For the record my moms disgusted w the tweets. But if I based my humor on my mom I'd be broke.” Lange finished: “All I care about is @CariChampion Truly.”

Lange has not deleted any of the NSFW tweets and if anyone does go to his page to read them, they are disturbing. Though Champion has not responded to the things said about her, co-worker Jemele Hill tweeted Lange’s “disgusting tweets” were “online harassment.”

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