14 Celebrities Who Torpedoed Their Reputation From A Talk-Show Couch
Okay, just go out there and talk about the movie, maybe make up a cute childhood anecdote aaaaaand okay his shoes are off and he’s wrestling the bandleader. Well, it was fun while it lasted.
Dax Shepard
He obviously clawed his way back to fame and fortune, but earlier in his career he was banned from Conan’s show until he sobered up. He says he blacked out during a pre-interview prep session, and completely blew the interview — “I show up on the show, I don’t know what he’s talking about. I can tell he’s cueing me up for stories I’ve told but I don’t know any of the stories” — while also breaking the set’s coffee table.
Joan Rivers (Or More Accurately, Johnny Carson)
When it became clear that NBC wasn’t going to entertain the idea of Rivers replacing Carson, she took an offer to host her own show at Fox. When Carson found out, he banned her from his show, blackballed any actor who would agree to guest on her show, and even Jay Leno upheld her ban when he took over The Tonight Show. Rivers summed up Carson’s attitude as “I found you, and you’re my property,” and his legacy has soured to that of a sexist brat.
Bill Hicks
He probably would have had a long, fruitful career had he not died of pancreatic cancer in 1993, but he considered his banned Late Show set to be the death knell of American comedy. A few months before his death, he made his 12th appearance on the show, but CBS found his material — about pro-life zealots, Jesus and the Easter Bunny — too controversial, and nixed it before air.
Crispin Glover
Whether performance art or genuine, his nervous, acrobatic diatribe on Late Night caused David Letterman to cut the interview short and America to say “that’s enough Crispin Glover for a while.”
Abel Ferrara
Conan said Ferrara attempted to escape his interview in 1996: “He was this wild eccentric. And he fled during the show before his segment. He ran away, got on the elevator, and was out on the street.” A producer captured him, and the resulting interview was chaotic and contentious.
Trista Sutter
The OG Bachelorette failed to make an impression when she went on Leno in 2003 to try to promote her big Bachelor spin-off. Leno said he went to the parking lot after the show, was asked by some random woman to take a picture with him, and didn’t realize it was Sutter herself.
Ringo Starr
World’s luckiest man Starr hated living in the shadow of his more famous bandmates, and he didn’t help the situation much by angrily and preemptively harping on it in an interview with Sherrie Hewson: “What are we doing here? Shall we just get Paul McCartney out of the way? Let’s get Paul McCartney out the way. You want to talk about Paul McCartney?”
Kathy Griffin
It was a picture of a fake beheaded Trump that finally did her in, but she’d been provoking late-night and daytime hosts for decades. She was banned from The Late Show for a few years because of her potty mouth, from Today for dunking on the hosts and from The View for a raunchy joke about Howard Stern and Barbara Walters.
Tom Cruise
Acting like a four-year-old in a bouncy castle while Oprah babysat wasn’t enough to convince America that Cruise was actually psyched about his Scientolo-rific engagement to Katie Holmes (or to any of his past or future wives, for that matter).
Bobcat Goldthwait
He was banned from Leno’s show, fined and charged with arson after turning around and lighting his chair on fire in 1994. He insisted he’s a satirist, not an arsonist: “If I were an arsonist, I would have been sexually aroused on The Tonight Show. Instead I was bored shitless like the rest of America.”
Jackie Mason
While doing a set on The Ed Sullivan Show, Sullivan gave Mason a gesture to indicate that he had two minutes left. Mason gestured back in acknowledgement, which Sullivan was certain was a middle finger, and subsequently banned him from the show. Sullivan issued an apology two years later, but in the interim, Mason’s six-episode contract was torn up and he was all but blackballed from the industry.
Harmony Korine
The director was notorious for making apparently cocaine-fueled appearances on Letterman’s Late Show, but he got banned from the show when Letterman went to greet Meryl Streep in the green room and found Korine rifling through her purse.
Robert De Niro
Great actor; boring dude. Graham Norton has said he’s the worst guest he’s ever had on his show — “He’s not a storyteller, or very verbal. He’s a benign presence.” — and even adrenaline junky Jimmy Fallon has said he’s his most boring interview — “In real life, he doesn’t talk much… just one-word answers and nodding.”
The Dorks From ‘Husbands’ (1970)
Dick Cavett had on director John Cassavetes and actors Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara, who took off their shoes, wrestled each other and sniffed each other’s feet until Cavett walked off the set. He recalls seeing the audience melt in disappointment in real time: “They were delighted, at first, and then the smiles disappeared. And then they looked just sort of grim and horrified and disapproving.” A producer told them afterward: “I really have to congratulate you. You probably unsold more tickets to this movie than most movies get.”
