Artie Lange goes on racist, sexist Twitter rant about ESPN host, gets dropped from '@midnight'

Comedy is a subjective art, but there is one topic that is never funny: rape. Artie Lange has learned this, or rather, he’s not learning it because he’s defending the insensitive and racist series of tweets he sent on Tuesday.

Lange, who is best known for his time with Howard Stern, sent a series of Tweets on Tuesday while watching ESPN’s First Take. “The chick on ESPNs First Take is so f***in hot,” the rant began, referring to host Cari Champion. He then began tweeting about a sexual fantasy, in which Champion was his slave and he was Thomas Jefferson.

It continued to get very uncomfortable, with him suggesting that he would whip and have eight illegitimate children with her. Some of the tweets were even directed at Champion’s Twitter handle.

After a few hours of receiving complaints, Lange sent out a non-apology, which he prefaced by writing, “I'm about to tweet a few things I can't believe have to be explained in a rational world.”

Lange then revealed that Comedy Central cancelled his Wednesday appearance on @midnight. Later, he insisted that he is not racist and doesn’t hate women.

In a statement to TheWrap, ESPN called Lange’s comments “reprehensible and no one should be subjected to such hateful language,” adding, “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 has continued to retweet messages of support and has tweeted more apologetic tweets, but insists that it was just a joke. In two more tweets, Lange, went after the politically correct crowd.

image courtesy of Scott Kirkland/INFphoto.com

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