Halle Berry obviously understands the lesson Mel Gibson learned more than a year ago, and along with him everyone else in Hollywood, which explains her almost frantic apologies over a recent televised gaffe.

Academy Award actress Halle Berry has been joyfully talking about her dream-come-true happiness to be pregnant for weeks now. While on “The Tonight Show” Friday, the actress accidentally peppered her talk of motherhood and her new movie (“Things We Lost in the Fire”) with an unfortunate remark.

Halle was telling host Jay Leno that when she needs to amuse herself and see the world in a rosier light, she relies on Apple's Photo Booth software. “The machine morphs your face to look like all these silly other people,” she said. “Whenever I'm feeling really bad about the world I do this to crack myself up.”

Halle then went on to show Leno one of her experiments, which showed her sporting an unusually large nose. “This one, I don't know, this is like my Jewish cousin,” she commented.

Oops right there.

Halle seemed to realize the lack of inspiration in her remark immediately, because she said “Oh, my God, have I just, like, ruined my whole career?” She showed the rest of the photos and the remainder of the show passed on un-controversially.

Tuesday, Halle reiterated the subject, this time apologizing repeatedly for her words that could have been interpreted as offensive by some of the viewers. She also mentioned that she asked host Jay Leno to remove that segment from his show.

“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.” She continued to explain at length how she and her three Jewish assistants were discussing which photos to use backstage, before Leno’s show, and how one of them said the exact “Jewish cousin” phrase.

“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 mean any harm…. It was just supposed to be a silly segment. I am so sorry, and I apologize.”

Leno was true to his word – the full remark was not heard on air, with laughing and some muting covering up, kind of.