ALAN Sugar has defended an offensive tweet by saying nobody minded when he built a business empire selling racist jokes in the 1980s.
The Apprentice star, criticised for tweeting an amusing observation about black people looking similar, said he made a fortune buying up racist jokes cheaply and selling them on at a profit.
Sir Alan said: “Racist jokes may seem outdated now but people couldn’t get enough of them back then. Everyone wanted one.
“I’d buy van-loads of them from comedians in Northern working men’s clubs then ship them down to London and flog them to the City boys at three times the price. I was making 80 grand a week.
“I remember Jim Davidson used to come round and say, ‘What have you got in the van for me this week, Alan? Any ‘Chalkies’?’
“When the old verbal jokes got a bit outdated in the 1990s I was still coining it in thanks to racist jokes by email. Your parents probably bought one. They’d show it off when they had friends round.”
Wayne Hayes of Guildford said: “My dad had a racist joke. We had a lot of fun with it in the 80s but it stopped working when people became less bigoted bastards.”
