Celebrity interviews are like Forrest Gump’s allegorical box of chocolates: you never know
what you’re going to get… or how full of booze it’s going to be.
Here’s a list of some of the cringiest moments in the history of conversations with the rich
and famous.
Does anyone here speak Cardi B?
Rapper Cardi B is known for her, shall we say, unfiltered approach to life.
This is, after all, the woman who once said to Giuliana Rancic on the Grammys red carpet:
“I’m feeling good, I'm feeling nervous, overwhelmed, everything."
"You feel it all right now?"
"I’m feeling, whooo, a butterfly in my stomach and vuhjayjay.”
So, with that in mind, imagine how Jimmy Fallon, the overly excitable host of The Tonight Show,
was in her presence.
Actually, you don't have to imagine.
You can watch Fallon be completely flabbergasted by the "Bodak Yellow" rapper in this interview
from December 2017.
“You are from The Bronx?"
[Strange noises]
Thanks to Cardi B's preference for peppering everything she says with bizarre sound effects,
Fallon was constantly thrown off his game, stopping several times to pause and collect
himself.
By the end of the interview, Fallon simply giggled and chirped back at Cardi B as she
dominated the segment with one-liners and zoo noises.
“I heard that and I was like [chirp] you know?
I totally was.”
Stan the Man
Perhaps it's a bit of a stretch to say that this interview went "terribly wrong," unless
you count an actor turning a promotional opportunity into a real-life Tinder session.
That's exactly what happened when Avengers: Infinity War star Sebastian Stan repeatedly
crushed on Sharon Stone throughout his May 2016 interview on The Late Late Show with
James Corden.
At one point, the Romanian-born actor even tossed out a pick-up line in his native tongue.
"How would one ask Sharon Stone on a date in Romanian?"
“Kinda like this: 'Ce faci?’"
When it became awkwardly clear that Stan's advances were more than just polite talk show
patter, Corden couldn't contain himself,
"You're a joke!
You're ridiculous!
You're fully going for it!
You're actually going for it, I love it!
This is exceptional!"
Good Libations
It's not often that you get to see a mainstream star like Mark Wahlberg get completely smashed
on TV, but that's precisely what happened when the Boogie Nights actor popped into The
Graham Norton Show in 2013.
Wahlberg even signalled his own demise at the start of the interview when he chastised
Norton for allowing guests to drink on the show.
“Why would you allow people to drink alcohol and come on a show?”
By the end of the interview, Wahlberg had done all of the following: blatantly hit on
fellow guest Sarah Silverman, fully groped Graham Norton's chest - including a
tweak - while sitting on his lap, and challenged fellow guest Michael Fassbender to, well…
“I want to challenge you…
I want to challenge you to a big d--- contest.”
Producers of the show later said that, although they knew Wahlberg was drinking in the green
room, he seemed fine to go on.
But then, quote, "[...] about a quarter of an hour in, something clicked, [and Wahlberg
ended up] not quite in the right place."
That has to be the nicest possible way to describe behavior that would normally get
one kicked out of a house party, let alone a popular TV show.
Do not mess with Mila
During a panel interview to promote their 2011 rom-com, Friends With Benefits, Mila
Kunis and Justin Timberlake tangoed with a Russian reporter who had thoughts about Timberlake's
acting career.
When the reporter asked, in Russian, why Timberlake felt the need to jump from "showbiz" to movies,
Kunis intervened to tackle the perceived slight on her co-star's behalf.
And she also happened to do it in fluent Russian.
When the reporter continued her strange line of questioning, asking, "Isn't showbiz enough?"
Kunis shot back,
Timberlake, meanwhile, just resigned himself to let Kunis and the reporter battle it out
in their native tongue, telling the crowd…
“This is my bodyguard.”
I feel too good
In 1988, singer James Brown was accused by his wife, Adrienne, of subjecting her to a
terrifying domestic assault.
Shortly after he bonded out of jail following his arrest for the incident, Brown did a completely
bonkers interview on CNN.
“How did all of this trouble begin?"
"Livin' in America!"
Instead of addressing the very serious charges he faced, Brown proceeded to sing, ramble
incoherently, and at one point, get out of his seat and start to dance.
Perhaps the most unbelievable part of the segment is when the interviewer actually asked
Brown about his then-pending divorce proceedings.
"I understand you've already started divorce proceedings.
Does mean that you're now eligible?"
“Yes I'm eligible!
I’m single and I wanna mingle!”
And the interview got weirder from there:
“I look good, I smell good, I feel good!"
"And you sing good!"
"And make love good!"
"Oh."
Absurd doesn't even begin to describe this whole scenario, which was so insane that comedian
Jordan Peele did a verbatim version of it a few years ago.
[Scream]
Well, that escalated quickly
It actually wasn't the single, awkward question about plastic surgery that turned a Megyn
Kelly Today interview with actress Jane Fonda into a full-blown trainwreck, but, rather,
the lasting feud it ignited afterwards.
Granted, Fonda's ice-cold glare at Kelly was about as cringeworthy as daytime TV gets...
“You admit you’ve had work done, which I think is to your credit.
But you look amazing, why did you say, I read that you said, you felt, you're not proud
to admit you've had work done."
But it was her subsequent shading of the talk show host that cranked this thing up to 11.
In multiple interviews after the "glare seen round the internet," Fonda would reference
how much she disliked Kelly’s line of questioning.
“I was just stunned, it was so inappropriate.
It showed that she’s not that good an interviewer.”
She even returned to Today and jabbed at Kelly again, eliciting shocked responses from Kelly's
colleagues.
“How long have you two known each other?”
"Fifty years."
“I think before your first facelift.”
To which Fonda replied, without missing a beat:
“Who are you, Megyn Kelly?”
Not to be outdone, Kelly swung back hard with a segment called "A word on Jane Fonda," in
which she highlighted several notable instances when Fonda had previously discussed her plastic
surgery.
Kelly then went for the kill by unearthing the decades-old controversy over Fonda's remarks
during her protest of the Vietnam War.
“After all, this is a woman who's name is synonymous with outrage.
Look at her treatment of our military during the Vietnam war."
Mad Mel
After a long hiatus from the movie biz following his DUI arrest and subsequent anti-semitic
remarks scandal, action star Mel Gibson returned to the screen with the revenge thriller Edge
of Darkness.
With any new film comes the inevitable celebrity interviews.
But instead of having appropriate responses to the inevitable questions about the then-recent
scandal, Gibson seemed surprised and irritated that reporters would even bring it up.
"Thanks a lot for joining us Mel, take care."
"Buh-bye.
A--hole."
In an interview with KTLA’s Sam Rubin, Gibson was asked whether he felt some detractors
would have a problem with his return.
“Some people are gonna welcome you back, and other people are gonna be like, 'He should
never come back.'"
“Why?”
And that's when things got really awkward:
“I gather you have a dog in this fight."
"Pardon me?"
"Do you have a dog in this fight, or are you being impartial?”
Rubin, who is Jewish, said that he didn't understand Gibson's question in the moment
but later realized it to be an offensive suggestion on account of his religious beliefs.
Regardless of what Gibson actually meant by the remark, his nearly instant rage at being
asked to address the scandal was not a good look, even for an actor who's made a career
out of portraying tough guys.
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