US comedian Jerry Seinfeld has taken back comments he made earlier this year about the "extreme left" ruining comedy.
On Wednesday, Seinfeld said on the Breaking Bread podcast with comedian Tom Papa that he did say that "but it is not true".
He said he "regrets" saying it and he has to "take back" the comments.
In April, in an interview with The New Yorker, Seinfeld said there was a lack of quality television comedy because "people [are] worrying so much about offending other people".
However, he told Papa he made the comments because he did not realise people cared about what he said.
"I did not know that people care what comedians say. That literally came as news to me," he said.
"Who the hell cares what a comedian thinks about anything?"
Seinfeld added he thought the fun thing about being a comedian was you could say whatever you wanted and if it got a laugh you could do a show the next night.
"I said that the extreme left has suppressed the art of comedy. I did say that. It's not true."
In the podcast interview, Seinfeld used a skiing analogy, saying: "Whatever the culture is, we make the gate."
"The game is: Where is the gate, how do I make the gate and get down the hill the way I want to?" he said.
Seinfeld's interview in April caused a stir and also appeared to trouble his former co-star Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
"When I hear people starting to complain about political correctness — and I understand why people might push back on it — but to me that's a red flag because it sometimes means something else," Dreyfus told The New York Times in June.
"I believe being aware of certain sensitivities is not a bad thing. I don't know how else to say it."
Michael Richards as Kramer, Jason Alexander as George Costanza, Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Elaine Benes and Jerry Seinfeld as himself in Seinfeld. (Supplied: Post Hill Press)
In the podcast interview, Seinfeld went back to his skiing analogy and said: "Are there things that I used to say that I can't say because people are always moving [the gate]? Yes, but that's the biggest, easiest target," he added.
"You can't say certain words, whatever they are, about groups. So what? The accuracy of your observation has to be 100 times finer than that to just be a comedian.
"I don't think the extreme left has done anything to inhibit the art of comedy. I am taking that back officially."
Seinfeld said in the podcast that he made the comment during the press tour for his movie Unfrosted, which divided critics.
The Washington Post reported that "the hit-to-miss joke ratio is decent — about three gags land for every one that gets stuck in the toaster".
Another one to critique the film was The Daily Beast, which said the film was "as bad as you'd expect."
The Hollywood Reporter was one of the only outlets to give the film a positive review. It called the film "gleefully silly".