John Henson, host of the TV Guide Channel “Watch This,” says he didn’t intend to disparage the state of Mississippi after making an offhanded remark while promoting a Sunday night episode of ABC’s “Extreme Makeover.”

The show featured a Brandon family who moved from a dilapidated home to a new one.

Henson, a former host of E! Entertainment Television’s “Talk Soup,” remarked that all homes in Mississippi are dilapidated.

In a phone interview Tuesday with The Sun Herald newspaper in Biloxi, Henson said “it was never, certainly never, my intention to be disrespectful of the state of Mississippi, or the people who live there.”

He said he had reviewed his on-air comments.

“We’re comedians. We make jokes,” Henson said. “And I made a comment about homes in Mississippi being dilapidated, and immediately followed that up by stating that that is in fact a stereotype that is not true. Then used that as a springboard to be self-deprecating.”

Henson said he has fond memories of Mississippi, where he spent many childhood summers at his great-grandmother’s home the Delta city of Indianola.