Almost losing a finger. Dealing with a pre-existing condition. Coming clean about their
past. You'll see these talk show hosts in a whole new light after learning about these sad details.
In 2007, police arrested Boston priest David Ajemian for stalking and harrassing Conan O'Brien.
Over the course of a year, Ajemian sent the late night host several postcards and letters with
alarming content. Some of the correspondence was even written on parish letterhead.
In one of the letters, Ajemian called himself O'Brien's "most dangerous fan." And in another
letter, the priest made references to the gunman responsible for the 2007 shooting
at Virginia Tech University. In 2008, Ajemian pleaded guilty to disorderly
conduct. But that didn't exactly lead him to changing his ways. he disobeyed
a restraining order filed by Anthony Everett, the co-host of Chronicle on Boston's WCVB-TV.
In 2015, Jimmy Fallon nearly lost one of his fingers in a scary incident. He was forced to
take two weeks off from hosting The Tonight Show after he slipped on a rug in his kitchen at home.
He managed to catch himself, but his finger ended up sideways. The injury
required surgery and ten days in intensive care. It turned out that he caught his
wedding ring on the countertop, and when he fell down, he pulled his finger off.
Fortunately, doctors were able to reattach Fallon's digit, but that doesn't mean it was easy.
The surgery lasted six hours, as doctors took a vein from his foot and implanted it into his hand.
"I mean, I didn't know this was happening, because I'm just knocked out at this point, yeah."
When Fallon returned to his show, he recalled,
"I should say the fall was funny. I'm a comedian so I have to fall funny."
"I feel bad for anyone who trips." "Yeah,
you think you're clean." "But if it was me watching me, I would laugh."
In 1997, Ellen DeGeneres came out as gay, but instead of feeling elated after admitting her
truth, she became very depressed. She opened up about this time in her life during a 2018
appearance on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast. She became the butt of insensitive
jokes on late-night shows, people mocked her, and she couldn't book any more acting jobs.
At this time, DeGeneres' career took quite the nosedive. Her sitcom was cancelled about a year
later, and she felt like a failure. Her face was plastered everywhere, and even other gay
celebs like Elton John criticized her for being featured in the media so much. She also felt a lot
of pressure to represent the gay community, which she didn't ask for. As she put it,
"I was looked at as the new leader,
and I didn't want to be a leader and I didn't want to be political."
In 2017, Jimmy Kimmel endured quite the personal heartbreak when he learned that
his son Billy was born with a congenital heart defect known as tetralogy of Fallot.
This meant that Billy's heart had a hole in the wall that prevented the correct amount of
oxygen from getting to his blood. He was put into a neonatal intensive-care unit
just hours after he was born. Three days later he had the first of several heart surgeries.
During a 2020 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the host and his wife Molly showed a video
montage of Billy in the hospital with multiple wires connected to his tiny
body. The video was captioned: "This is what it looks like to have a 'pre-existing' condition."
Kimmel was attempting to draw attention to efforts by congressional Republicans to remove
protections included in the Affordable Care Act. He warned that if they were successful,
millions of people would suffer the consequences of not being able to afford adequate healthcare.
"If your baby is going to die — and it doesn't have
to — it shouldn't matter how much money you make."
Former Daily Show host Trevor Noah has been open about his struggles growing up during
apartheid in South Africa. His mother Patricia is a Black South African woman,
while his father Robert is a white man from Switzerland, and he grew up in poverty.
"Most people would have a sign to protest government oppression. My mother had me."
During an episode of The Jess Cagle Interview, Noah talked about a particularly terrifying time
when he was a young adult and he learned that his stepfather had shot his mother in the head.
Fortunately, Noah's mother survived. His stepfather was convicted of attempted murder,
but he only received probation. Noah was understandably enraged, but his mother told
him to pity his stepfather instead, because he was a victim of toxic masculinity. She didn't want her
son to carry hatred in his heart over the crime. It was difficult for Noah to temper his emotions,
but eventually, he recognized his mother's strength in her ability to bravely move on.
Montel Williams hos ted his eponymous talk show from 1991 to 2008. During that time,
he was also struggling with multiple sclerosis. Back in 1980, he was attending the Naval Academy
when he experienced the first onset of symptoms. He ended up losing the majority of his vision in
one of his eyes. He was only 22 years old at the time, and doctors couldn't explain
what was happening. It would take 19 years before he was finally diagnosed with MS.
During an interview with Dr. Oz,
Williams revealed that he would interview his guests and then go backstage and cry
because he was suffering so badly. This was a daily occurrence. As he admitted,
"My primary symptom is pain. I've got pain from my shins to my feet,
24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and it's been there for the last 10 years."
To cope with his chronic condition, Williams has employed psychiatric
and psychological techniques to distract himself.
"Now I've had some difficulty along the way, but I work at this every single day."
In 1989, when he was in his mid-20s, British talk show host Graham Norton nearly lost his
life when he was targeted in a violent attack. He opened up about the incident during a 2021
interview with CBC Radio's Q. One night while he was walking home from drama school, he was
stabbed and lost a significant amount of blood. Only later did he realize that he could've died.
Afterwards, Norton resolved to take more risks in life. He now often asks himself
what's the worst that could happen, and nothing is worse than almost dying.
And this wasn't the only time that someone came at Norton with a knife. The second time
happened again outside a club, but there were other people around, and it was nowhere near
as big a deal as the earlier occasion, as he ultimately wasn't stabbed again.
During a 2018 interview with Rolling Stone, Late Show host Stephen Colbert opened up about
his experiences with anxiety. As a young man, he required medication to function,
and there was one time in the 90s when he had a nervous breakdown. He was prescribed Xanax,
which took the edge off but didn't completely rid him of his anxiety.
When he got married, he worked at night while his wife worked during the day,
and he experienced panic attacks during which he would literally walk circles around his couch.
Colbert's solution to overcome his anxiety was by way of performing. While he was nervous backstage,
he had the ability to shut off his overactive brain once he was on stage.
But then he'd be a ball of anxiety the minute he finished. He ultimately
stopped taking Xanax because he wanted to work through his issues without it.
Wendy Williams has been open about her history of drug addiction, and in 2019
she revealed that she'd been living in a sober house as part of her recovery. On her talk show,
she's also admitted that she's struggled with cocaine. She was honest with her audience and
explained that substance abusers have to struggle with their addictions for
their whole lives. She recalled one particularly rough period by noting,
"I was a mess, functioning, killing myself."
Williams considered it a miracle that she was able
to stop abusing drugs when she was 29. She then spent 10 years as a cocaine
acddict and wanted to tell her fans how she was able to overcome her problems.
"I am not embarrassed, you know, about anything."
Williams has also been diagnosed with Graves' disease, an autoimmune condition that can cause
hyperthyroidism. It can also cause a person's eyes to bulge and lead to such symptoms as depression,
anxiety, fatigue, forgetfulness, hair loss, and many other issues. Williams
has had other issues over the years, including infamously fainting on air one time in 2017. She
attributed that to being low on electrolytes while wearing a Statue of Liberty costume.
Craig Ferguson hosted CBS's The Late Late Show for nine years until he handed the reins to
James Corden in 2014. The Scottish native made headlines in 2007 when his monologue
about Britney Spears and her very public troubles included a confession of his own.
While the pop star was seeking help in rehab and shaving her head and getting tattoos,
he was celebrating his fifteenth year of sobriety. In 2019, he published his
memoir Riding the Elephant and explained how being an alcoholic nearly cost him his career.
Ferguson revealed in his memoir that during a particularly dark period when he couldn't stop
drinking and didn't necessarily want to, he knew that he couldn't go on living the
way that he was. He even considered suicide and wound up having a drink with a friend,
which distracted him from those dark thoughts. As he put it in the memoir,
"The paradox and the conundrum of alcoholism is not that people drink because they're trying to
destroy themselves, they're trying to save themselves."
Ferguson stopped drinking in 1992 and moved to the United States,
which afforded him an opportunity to start over.
During a 1986 episode of her talk show, Oprah Winfrey revealed that
she'd been sexually abused as a child. As she put it at the time,
"There really is no darker secret than sexual abuse. I am telling you about
myself so that maybe the closet where so many sexual abuse victims and their
abusers hide might swing open just a crack today, and let some light in."
Over the course of her career, Winfrey has produced more than 200 episodes about sexual
abuse. Her own experience involved being raped by a cousin when she was only nine.
She didn't even know what sex was or what was happening to her, and like many victims of abuse,
she didn't tell anyone what happened. She credits her teachers with helping
her get through that dark period, as school was the only place where she felt loved.
"It is not your fault."
In 1988, police arrested a woman named Margaret Mary Ray after she was caught driving David
Letterman's Porsche in New York City. She was stopped near the Lincoln Tunnel, as she was unable
to pay the toll. She reportedly claimed that she was the talk show host's wife and that her son
was named David Jr. Over the years, Ray had been arrested on numerous occasions for trespassing
and other crimes. At one point, she was discovered sleeping on Letterman's Connecticut property near
his tennis courts and told members of the media that she left cookies and alcohol at his house.
As a result of her actions, Ray served 10 months in jail and 14 months in a mental health facility
after being convicted of trespassing. She was aggressive with authorities, and due to her
mental health issues, she was often considered incompetent, which kept her from going to trial.
In a 1992 interview with The Advocate newspaper of Stamford, Connecticut, Letterman said,
"The thing is, she's insane. And you don't want to do anything to make it worse than it is."
This story has a particularly sad and gruesome end: in 1998,
Ray killed herself by kneeling in front of an oncoming train.
If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction issues,
help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).