After Jason Alexander’s comments about Heidi Swedberg’s character on Seinfeld went viral, the actor realized that he needed to issue an apology to Swedberg. In a long Twitter post today, he told fans, “Oh dear God, leave Heidi alone.”
Back on Wednesday, Alexander explained that the reason why Susan, the character Swedberg played and his character George’s fiancee, was killed off. After 28 episodes on the show, the character was suddenly killed in the silliest way possible - by licking cheap stamps. Alexander told Howard Stern that Swedberg was hard to work with and Julia Louis-Dreyfus suggested that Susan be killed, since she and Jerry Seinfeld also struggled with her.
To clear the air and to make sure that Swedberg didn’t get swamped with insults online, Alexander posted a long essay on Twitter. He stressed that Seinfeld and Larry David we “killing” Susan, not Swedberg the actress. He added that Swedberg was a professional and did not mean to “diminish her” by retelling the story.
“But in telling this story, it sounds like we are putting a heavy burden on Heidi. I, personally, am not. Heidi would always ask if there was anything in the scenes she could do or if I had any thoughts,” Alexander wrote. “She was generous and gracious and I am so mad at myself for retelling this story in any way that would diminish her. If I had had more maturity or more security in my own work, I surely would have taken her query and possibly tried to adjust the scenes with her. She surely offered. But, I didn't have that maturity or security. And, Larry and Jerry would probably have killed me as it was all playing exactly as they wanted. Clearly Susan and George were coming off just the way they wanted.”
Alexander then asked the media not to “pervert” the story, adding that no one who worked on Seinfeld didn’t like Swedberg.
“To Heidi, I personally apologize,” he concluded. “You are a sweetheart. I actually launched into this on Stern to defend you. But this is why I'm not a lawyer. Now everybody, calm down and just enjoy the reruns and think, ‘why did he think this wasn't working? This is great.’”
Swedberg appeared on Seinfeld during season seven before she was killed in “The Invitations.”
image courtesy of INFphoto.com