While everyone loves a really compelling interview, talk shows, much like everything in pop culture,
thrive on drama.
But it's not always the most obvious guests that stand out as bad interview culprits.
We've got the dirt as some of our favorite talk show hosts reveal their worst guests
ever.
During a 2019 interview with actor Willem Defoe, Conan O'Brien got to discussing his
worst encounters on Late Night with Conan O'Brien.
He recalled his sit down with director Abel Ferrara in 1996, an appearance that apparently
almost never happened.
As Conan explained it, Ferrara tried to run away from the show just before he was scheduled
to go on the air.
"And our segment producer had to run down, take the elevator down and run down the street
and catch him and bring him back."
The interview didn't get any better from there.
Appearing to be intoxicated, Ferrara shuffled in his seat and mumbled his way through questions.
O'Brien could only laugh in spots, struggling to understand his guest.
"Is it just me?
I mean…?"
"It's alive!
Yo, Max!"
Conan later related the same story while speaking to Dax Shepard on his Armchair Expert podcast.
Shepard asked the question that was no doubt on everybody's mind.
"Do you think he was intoxicated?"
"Yes.
I mean, I'm sure.
Or if not, he should have been."
When Andy Cohen was asked to name his worst guest ever during an appearance on the Rachael
Ray Show, he didn't hold back.
"Amber Rose," the Watch What Happens Live host said.
"She didn't want to answer any of the questions that I was asking her."
Apparently, Rose was aware that her unwillingness to contribute gossip might make her look bad.
"She said on the air, she goes, 'Am I your worst guest ever?'
I go, 'You are in the running right now.
You really are.'"
One year later, Cohen doubled down on Rose being the worst guest during a Q&A session
at a For Your Consideration Emmys event.
However, a close second appears to be Debra Winger, as an audience member suggested, to
which Cohen had to agree.
In her appearance on Cohen's show, there definitely appeared to be tension between the two.
"Let's try to get something straight."
"Okay, sorry."
"I mean come on, it's rough."
Cohen explained in the Q&A:
"You know what's weird about Debra Winger?
We really did connect...But then when the camera came on, she wasn't having me."
"Bro, I'm straight up not having a good time."
While appearing on Watch What Happens Live, Craig Ferguson was asked to reveal the worst
guest he ever had on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.
After some consideration, Ferguson confessed it was singer Macy Gray.
"I think she was in a bad mood that night.
Yeah."
"Right.
Right.
Okay."
"I don't think she's a bad person, I think it was just very...and I was very new…"
"Uh-huh."
"...and I couldn't handle it."
However, Ferguson later had someone else in mind when discussing a similar topic after
his appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers.
"I thought, 'Oh man, you must be like a cataclysmic f---ing ass---- when you're just in your regular
life.'"
Though Ferguson promised to tell Meyers who this mystery guest was after the interview,
the audience was left in the dark.
While sitting down with Craig Ferguson on the final episode of The Late Late Show, Jay
Leno was asked if he ever got bored and zoned out during an interview as the longtime host
of The Tonight Show.
Not only did Leno say that he had, he went on to talk about exactly who made his eyes
glass over on air.
"The classic example of this: I had one of these reality stars on.
Trista.
From one of these Bachelorettes."
He was talking about Trista Sutter, the original star of The Bachelorette, and he started to
reenact their conversation:
"I'm talking to her like this, and I'm looking at the side of her head...I couldn't be less
interested.
I've never seen this stupid reality show.
I didn't know what it was."
But it got worse.
Immediately after the show, Leno was approached by a woman for a photo in the studio's parking
lot, but it was only after he asked for her name that he realized who it was, the woman
he had just interviewed.
"She goes, 'Can I have a picture?'
I say, 'Sure, how you doing?'
'Good.'
Says, 'What's your name?'
She goes, 'What?'
'What's your name?'
'Trista.'
'What?
Oh, hey!'"
Yikes!
After this episode of The Late Late Show aired, Sutter took to Twitter to speak about the
namedrop, saying:
"After 10 yrs, ironic that I'm the topic of convo on [Craig Ferguson's] last show.
Thx 4 the shoutout @jayleno!
Next time, plz mention my book."
In 2012, Stephen Colbert interviewed his friend and former coworker, Jon Stewart, in a fundraiser
event for the Montclair Film Festival.
As the two TV hosts shared funny stories with the audience, Stewart declared that Hugh Grant
was his least favorite guest on The Daily Show, adding, quote, "And we've had dictators
on the show."
"Alright, let's get right to it.
Do you have nuclear weapons?"
"Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
What was the question?"
Stewart said of Grant's visit to the Comedy Central show:
"He's giving everyone s--- the whole time, and he's a big pain in the a--."
Stewart also claimed that the actor went on to complain about the clip used to promote
his film, Did You Hear About the Morgans?, saying, quote, "What is that clip?
It's a terrible clip."
Now that these quotes have made the rounds online, Grant has addressed his behavior several
times, owning up to it as best as you could expect:
"Jon Stewart famously said that you were the worst guests he ever had.
You're one of the best guests I've ever had."
"Well, he wasn't entirely wrong.
I did have a tantrum backstage."
Grant also took to Twitter to address Stewart's comments, writing:
"Turns out my inner crab got the better of me with TV producer in 09.
Unforgivable.
J Stewart correct to give me kicking."
Dick Cavett spoke with many guests over the years on the various incarnations of The Dick
Cavett Show, many good, and some bad.
The very worst, however, according to Cavett's interview with The New Yorker, was the trio
of John Cassavetes, Peter Falk, and Ben Gazzara.
They were there to promote their 1970 film, Husbands, and it didn't take long for the
appearance to go off the rails.
Cavett's guests could barely decide who should sit where and then they refused to even speak
to their host.
"You fellas have made a film, it's finished now, is it?
You've done it all.
It's over?"
Cavett told the New Yorker:
"It was out of the blue.
It was astonishing.
I could not believe it, while it was happening.
I think I watched it a year or so ago, and it seemed even worse than I remembered it."
"This is the worst."
Indeed, it really was that bad, with three grown men doing pratfalls, wrestling, and
showing off their feet.
While the audience appeared to enjoy it at first, the extended gag got old, and quick.
According to Cavett, the film's producer, who was backstage, laid into them for the
performance.
"In the wings, afterwards, their producer grabbed the three of them, like three kids
who are acting up.
He got them in a group and said, 'I really have to congratulate you.
You probably unsold more tickets to this movie than most movies get.'"
"I think we can all learn something from this.
God knows I have."
In 2019, Lorraine Kelly celebrated 35 years of being on television, most of which she's
spent as the titular host of Lorraine.
The Brit sat down with Dan Wootton from Hello! to answer some questions about her career
to that point, the high and the lows.
On the topic of worst interviews or worst interviewees, Kelly pointed to an interview
with Kevin Spacey.
"He was horrible.
Just very arrogant.
I didn't like him at all."
While Spacey was a bit of a safer target considering his now-controversial place in pop culture,
she also took aim at some higher profile actors, namely Harrison Ford and Bruce Willis.
She explained that Ford acted as if he didn't like the movie he was promoting, so he wasn't
really happy to be there, which kind of makes sense.
In regard to Willis, the longtime TV host had more personal remarks:
"And Bruce Willis was just weird.
You'd ask him a question and he would give you an answer that had absolutely nothing
to do with what you just said."
Fans of The Graham Norton Show will no doubt remember the 2015 episode with Robert De Niro,
in which fellow guest Tom Hiddleston famously performed an impression of the legendary actor
in front of him.
"What if you do got me boxed in, and I gotta put you down?"
But it's what we didn't see that made De Niro Graham Norton's least favorite guest.
At the Cheltenham Literature Festival, Norton revealed that De Niro's yarn-weaving abilities
left a lot to be desired.
"He's not a storyteller, or very verbal.
He's a benign presence.
Last time he started telling a story, he went on and on.
We were all leaning in, willing it to be amazing...then he finally went, 'why am I telling this?'
Nobody had an answer.
We cut it."
He also made mention of the episode featuring the cast of Ocean's 8.
"I felt like the guy driving the bus on a hen party.
For 45 minutes people were talking over each other and laughing…They were having a great
time but the audience was nonplussed."
Larry King interviewed some of the most legendary people on the planet on Larry King Live and
surely has plenty of talks he would rather forget.
For example, asking Jerry Seinfeld whether he gave up on Seinfeld or was let go is probably
high up on that list.
But getting slammed and mocked by the comedian was not, according to King, his worst interview.
Per his interview on Sway in the Morning, that honor goes to Phyllis Gates.
While reflecting on the Gates interview, King revealed how hard they'd promoted what promised
to be a juicy talk with the then-mystery wife of the late actor, Rock Hudson.
But the interview fell way short of expectations.
"Did you watch those movies?"
"No."
"When you see it now, an old movie comes up on television?"
"I turn it off."
After Gates explained how she met and married Hudson, she went on to provide very little
gossip, and it wasn't long before the interview devolved into a series of questions and one-word
answers.
"I look over at the clock.
I'm four minutes in.
I got another 56 minutes to do with this woman."
To the untrained eye, Bob Hope and Johnny Carson were good friends.
In fact, Hope appeared on The Tonight Show more often than most, and even had his own
theme music when he came on, with the band playing "Thanks for the Memory."
Yet, according to Richard Zoglin, the author of the biography Hope: Entertainer of the
Century, there was apparently some tension between the two.
Zoglin wrote:
"[Hope] would introduce a reel of taped highlights from his upcoming NBC special.
Then he would scoot away, always with somewhere urgent to go.
One of those who grew tired of the routine was Johnny Carson."
It was competition that was said to be at the heart of the strife.
Though he recognized Hope's position in the industry, the talk show host supposedly didn't
appreciate the humor that got him there.
Zoglin continued:
"Carson never warmed to the older comedian, either personally or professionally."
"Good night, and always remember, that's…"
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