Wracked with guilt, David Letterman apologized profusely about censoring Bill Hicks 15 years ago on The Late Show. "I'm sorry that I did it," he said several times on the Jan. 30 show. "It was a mistake... The decision was mine."

Letterman aired the censored five-minute standup segment from Oct. 1, 1993 and interviewed Hicks' mother Mary, who stated, "I will tell you it was a very hard time 15 years ago when that happened."

Hicks' routine had traces of George Carlin and Lenny Bruce. He touched on hot-button subjects like abortion, homosexuality and religion. Hicks opened with a joke about killing Bill Ray Cyrus and made fun of gay manuals for children. He suggested that pro-lifers should "lock arms and block cemetaries" and finished strongly, goofing on Easter: "I've read the Bible and I can't find the word bunny or chocolate anywhere in the book. A lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks. Nice sentiment, but you think when Jesus comes back he's really gonna wanna look at a cross? That maybe is why he hasn't shown up yet. 'They're stil wearing crosses? I'm not going. They totally missed point. I'm not going, forget it. I'll go back as a bunny.'"

Watch Bill Hicks on Letterman 10/1/93

Letterman reportedly was offended by Hicks' Jesus jibe, but on the show he chose not to be specific, calling it "an error of judgement on my part. I made the decision I think born of insecurity more than anything else. I said I don't think we want to have that on the show. So we removed it from the show.

"Seeing it now raises the question, what was the matter with me?" Letterman went on. "What was I thinking? This says more about me as a guy than it says about Bill because there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. It's just perfect."

The Texan-born comic appeared on Late Night 11 times. "We always loved Bill," Letterman added. "He was tremendously funny with a great energy. We just got a big kick out of him."

Hicks died of pancreatic cancer on Feb. 26. 1994. He was 32.

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