Celebrities and late-night talk show hosts usually have a symbiotic relationship. The celebrity guest can use the show as a platform to promote their latest project, while the host can ask juicy questions and get fun stories from a star that their audience is interested in. Once in a while, however, this harmony is thrown completely out of balance.
In many instances when a celebrity is banned from a late-night show, it’s due to their actions on the show. Late-night hosts have a tricky job, corralling spontaneous famous people to adhere to the format of the show. Plus, much of late-night television is live, meaning the hosts have no choice but to roll with it when things go off the rails. An unpredictable guest might not get invited back.
In other cases, celebs have been preemptively banned before they’ve even been a guest due to conflict outside the show. A lot of these feuds are actually between various late-night hosts themselves. Sometimes the ban sticks for life; other times it may be reversed. Whatever the reason, each of these people became a persona non grata on at least one late-night show.
Harmony Korine Was Banned From The ‘Late Show with David Letterman’ After He Was Caught With Meryl Streep’s Purse
Director Harmony Korine, who is perhaps best known for his film Spring Breakers, was better known to David Letterman as a purse rifler. In the mid-to-late ’90s, Korine made several odd appearances on the Late Show at a time when he was also frequently high on crack and heroin. But one appearance never came to fruition because Letterman banned him.
Letterman finally explained the ban in 2013 when Korine’s friend, James Franco, came on the show:
I went upstairs to greet Meryl Streep and welcome her to the show, and I knock on the door… and she was not in there. And I looked around… and I found Harmony going through her purse. True story. And so I said: “That’s it, put her things back in her bag and then get out.”
Whether it was curiosity or petty theft, we’ll probably never know. Korine’s recollection of the ban was that it was for pushing the actress backstage. However, Letterman told Franco that Korine (who got sober) was again welcome on the show, officially lifting the ban.
Bobcat Goldthwait Set ‘The Tonight Show’ Ablaze
Comedian Bobcat Goldthwait made a late-night appearance that literally went down in flames. In 1994, Goldthwait was a guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno when he decided to set his chair on fire. It may have seemed spontaneous, but Goldthwait came prepared with lighter fluid and a lighter hidden up his sleeve.
Leno and another guest, Lauren Hutton, quickly doused the flames with cups of water, and Goldthwait said the host was (not unreasonably) upset with him. His ban from the show wasn’t the only repercussion, though. He was also charged with arson.
According to NBC, he is the first Tonight Show guest to be charged with a crime. Goldthwait had to pay a $3,880 fine (part of which went to NBC to replace the burnt chair) and film fire safety PSAs.
Still, he said he’s no arsonist. As he put it on an episode of Comedy Product in 1996:
I’m not an arsonist. I’m a satirist. If I were an arsonist, I would have been sexually aroused on The Tonight Show. Instead I was bored sh*tless like the rest of America.
ay Leno Wasn’t Welcome On ‘Conan’ After Taking Back ‘The Tonight Show’
One of the most bitter and complex talk show feuds of all time occurred between two of late-night television’s most famous hosts: Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien. The drama went down in 2010. Leno had been the host of The Tonight Show on NBC since 1992. In the mid-2000s, O’Brien, the host of NBC’s Late Night, started getting tempting offers from other networks. Wanting to keep O’Brien, NBC promised him the hosting job on The Tonight Show when Leno’s contract was up in 2009.Leno didn’t take kindly to the news that he was (eventually) getting the boot. So once 2009 rolled around, to keep Leno from going to another network, NBC started The Jay Leno Show, a primetime program that aired before The Tonight Show. When neither Leno nor O’Brien earned good ratings, the network went a step further and put The Jay Leno Show in O’Brien’s slot, bumping The Tonight Show back a half hour from its usual time. O’Brien ended up taking a payout, and The Tonight Show eventually fell back into Leno’s hands.
While NBC took a lot of heat for the debacle, Leno also received a lot of backlash for refusing to go gracefully when he’d previously stated he would, and for painting himself as a hapless pawn of NBC.
Speaking to Playboy in 2010, O’Brien said he’d moved on from the incident, refusing to let it embitter him. But when asked whether he’d ever invite Leno to be a guest on his TBS show, O’Brien responded, “No, there are certain things I will not do, regardless of the price.”
Jay Leno Wasn’t Welcome On ‘Conan’ After Taking Back ‘The Tonight Show’
One of the most bitter and complex talk show feuds of all time occurred between two of late-night television’s most famous hosts: Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien. The drama went down in 2010. Leno had been the host of The Tonight Show on NBC since 1992. In the mid-2000s, O’Brien, the host of NBC’s Late Night, started getting tempting offers from other networks. Wanting to keep O’Brien, NBC promised him the hosting job on The Tonight Show when Leno’s contract was up in 2009.
Leno didn’t take kindly to the news that he was (eventually) getting the boot. So once 2009 rolled around, to keep Leno from going to another network, NBC started The Jay Leno Show, a primetime program that aired before The Tonight Show. When neither Leno nor O’Brien earned good ratings, the network went a step further and put The Jay Leno Show in O’Brien’s slot, bumping The Tonight Show back a half hour from its usual time. O’Brien ended up taking a payout, and The Tonight Show eventually fell back into Leno’s hands.
While NBC took a lot of heat for the debacle, Leno also received a lot of backlash for refusing to go gracefully when he’d previously stated he would, and for painting himself as a hapless pawn of NBC.
Speaking to Playboy in 2010, O’Brien said he’d moved on from the incident, refusing to let it embitter him. But when asked whether he’d ever invite Leno to be a guest on his TBS show, O’Brien responded, “No, there are certain things I will not do, regardless of the price.”
Jon Stewart Said Hugh Grant Was The Worst Guest He Ever Had
In an interview with Stephen Colbert in 2012, Jon Stewart was asked to name his least favorite guest on The Daily Show. His answer was actor Hugh Grant. “And we’ve had dictators on this show,” Stewart said.
According to Stewart, Grant spent his time complaining to production staff and claiming he had better places to be. When Stewart showed a promotional clip, provided to him by Grant’s publicist, of his film Did You Hear About the Morgans?, Grant complained about the clip selected. Stewart’s response? “Well, then make a better f*cking movie.” Stewart said he would never have the actor back on the show.
When he learned of Stewart’s comments, Grant responded in a tweet:
Turns out my inner crab got the better of me with TV producer[s] in ’09. Unforgivable. J Stewart [is] correct to give me kicking.
Oprah Winfrey Wouldn’t Go On The ‘Late Show with David Letterman’ For 16 Years
Oprah Winfrey and David Letterman had a quasi-feud for 16 years that was strange because neither seemed to know if or why they were feuding. After appearing on Late Night with David Letterman in 1989, Winfrey instituted a self-imposed ban, refusing to go on the show despite Letterman publicly prodding her.
In 2005, Winfrey finally came on to address the issue, but the feud was still shrouded in mystery. Winfrey asked Letterman, “Could you tell me please what has transpired? I have never for a moment had a feud with you.”
Still, things didn’t seem resolved. In 2010, Letterman speculated to Jon Stewart about what he considered the origins of the animosity. While many assumed it had something to do with Letterman’s “Uma, Oprah” joke at the 1995 Oscars, Letterman told Stewart that Winfrey “hated” him because he once made her pay for his lunch. Apparently, Letterman spotted Winfrey having lunch at the same place as him on vacation and told his server that Winfrey would be picking up the tab.
The saga seemed to reach some closure in 2013, when Letterman appeared on Oprah’s Next Chapter. Winfrey described that what prompted her self-banning was actually her first appearance on Late Night:
[I]t was a terrible experience for me. The guy in the audience started yelling, “Get her, Dave!” You were sort of baiting the audience, and there were a bunch of drunk guys down the front. I was trying to like, you know, mitigate the whole thing, and it felt so uncomfortable to me. I didn’t want to have that experience again.
Seth Meyers Banned Donald Trump In Retaliation
In 2016, Late Night host Seth Meyers banned Donald Trump from the show. It was a retaliatory move in response to Trump’s own ban – he revoked press credentials from The Washington Post after the news organization printed a headline he didn’t like.
Meyers of course knew he’d banned a person he was unlikely to invite on the show anyway, but this was part of the joke:
We instituted this ban despite the fact he’s never been here, or asked to be here, or would ever be caught dead here. I just think that takes an amazing amount of courage on our part. So, the ball is in your court, Donald. Either rescind your Washington Post ban or you’re not allowed to appear on the show you have no interest in appearing on. Although maybe now that you can’t have it, you’re changing your mind.
