JERRY Seinfeld is claiming comic-relief was the reason he called a Westchester cookbook author a “wacko celebrity stalker.”

Seinfeld ripped into Missy Chase Lapine during an appearance last fall on David Letterman’s “Late Show,” following claims that his wife, Jessica, had copied the idea for Lapine’s cookbook, “The Sneaky Chef.”

In court papers filed last Friday, Seinfeld argues that his insults were protected “overstatements of opinion for comic effect.”

Claims of copyright violations are based on “trivial and unprotectable aspects of her work,” the papers say.