You may have thought that Halle Berry was just about the least offensive person in the world, what with her immaculate good looks and her fondness for making films that nobody cares about, but you'd be wrong.

Because underneath Halle Berry's flawless facade beats the angry heart of an anti-Semite. An angry, nasty, unapologetic anti-Semite. Well, alright, not really an unapologetic anti-Semite, because Halle Berry cracked a weak one-liner about how she looked a bit Jewish on Jay Leno recently and hasn't stopped apologising about it yet. And since what she said wasn't even especially offensive in the first place, that probably rules out the 'angry' and 'nasty' bits too. And the bit about Halle Berry being an anti-Semite. So we suppose what really meant to say was that underneath Halle Berry's flawless facade beats the heart of an over-cautious woman who doesn't hate anyone and can't stop saying sorry about it. That sounds fair. 

We live in a culturally-sensitive climate these days, where just one stray word can sometimes end your career. Look at poor old Michael Richards – he was a moderately successful stand-up comedian before he decided to tell everyone that black people should all be impaled on pitchforks. And Isaiah Washington got sacked merely for angrily roaring the word 'faggot' at his colleague. And Don Imus, too, for saying something about gardening equipment or the like.

So who can blame Halle Berry for being afraid to even say the word 'Jewish' on television any more. Because that's what she did on a Friday-night taping of Jay Leno, before getting the Jay Leno production team to remove that part of the conversation and then apologising to all the Jewish people in the world for saying the name of their religion out loud anyway. As far as promotional tactics for new Halle Berry movies go, you have to admit that frantically apologising for a non-offensive comment is probably better than when Halle Berry recounted the time she tried to kill herself like she did when Perfect Stranger was released.

What was this supposedly anti-Jewish remark that Halle Berry is so utterly mortified about? Well, when look at computer-distorted photos of herself with Jay Leno on air – no, us neither – Halle Berry blurted out:

"Here's where I look like my Jewish cousin!"

Although NBC bleeped out the word 'Jewish', it failed to bleep out the bit immediately afterwards where Halle Berry said:

"Oh my God, have I just like ruined my career?"

Call it the pregnancy hormones playing up if you like, but Halley Berry now does seem partially convinced that her career may be over, even though most of us assumed that happened when she signed the Gothika contract. Anyway, long story short, Halle Berry can't stop ruddy well apologising for the joke, as People reports:

"I so didn't mean to offend anybody – and after the show I realized it could be seen as offensive, so I asked Jay to take it out, and he did," Berry said. She explained further: "What happened was, I was backstage before the show, and I have three girls who are Jewish who work for me. We were going through pictures to see which ones looked silly, and one of my Jewish friends said [of the big-nose picture], 'That could be your Jewish cousin!' And I guess it was fresh in my mind, and it just came out of my mouth. But I didn't mean to offend anybody. I didn't. I didn't mean any harm."

We're certainly satisfied that Halle Berry doesn't hate Jewish people, not least because she's shown instances of being on a racist hair-trigger herself in the past. And we can't tell you how relieved we are to hear that – not only does it mean we don't have to go through another tedious round of reporting every single one of Halle Berry's face-saving meetings with representatives from the Anti-Defamation League and whatever ridiculous rehab course she'd choose to put herself through, but it means we'll be spared Halle Berry's over-long historical epic filmed in a dead language, which seems to be de rigueur for anti-Semites these days.

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Halle Berry Apologises For Joke On Leno – People