It’s hard to believe, but there were times when David Letterman was not the best host, especially towards his celebrity guests. But even before he retired, there were many more shows featuring different hosts with the same attitude.
Here are a few examples of late-night talk show hosts being absolutely inappropriate toward their celebrity guests.
1. Jimmy Kimmel’s bad jokes
In one of the episodes, Megan Fox was trying to tell the audience that she’d been sexualized from a very young age. But Kimmel decided that having a serious talk about this problem was harshing the show’s mellow, so he played it off like it was a joke.
2. David Letterman got hot and bothered
When Jessica Alba told the viewers about her horrible experience in the movie Honey, where she had to wear a revealing outfit, Letterman might as well have licked his lips and gone “NICE!” Even that reaction would have been less degrading than the multiple “How tiny was it?” and “Where was it tiny?” questions.
3. Jimmy Kimmel’s backhanded compliment
Everyone just loves it when you tell them they smell nice but imply that they wouldn’t. You can read into this clusterfork of a conversation as much as you want, but there’s no way Kimmel meant it as a compliment.
4. Does David Letterman have a smell kink?
If you watch some of those older Late Show episodes with David Letterman, you may not like what you see. Like this one time when he had Tina Turner on his couch and told her she smelled really nice? Dude, relax! Worst of all, he did this to many other female guests, including Janet Jackson and Beyoncé.
5. Creepy Camera zoom
One time on David Letterman Show, the camera crew got a bit too feisty with their zoom by focusing too much on JLo’s breast area. But that wasn’t the creepy part. Letterman saying, “Look at that. That’s pretty darn good” – now that was horrible.
6. Conan O’Brien got caught staring
Remember the classic line “my eyes are up here”? Well, Nicole Scherzinger caught Conan leering at her breasts and told him to focus on what she was saying instead of what he was looking at. Was it a scripted joke? Maybe. But what if it wasn’t?
7. David Letterman gets too touchy
In real life, there are only a handful of situations where a stranger would be allowed to touch someone’s hair, and all of those cases require some form of consent. So when Letterman just goes for it on camera, and Catherine Zeta-Jones cringes in confusion, you know something is not right there.
8. David Letterman with his hair kink again
Do you know what’s worse than touching a woman’s hair without her consent? Putting it in your mouth and sucking on it. Yes, really. David Letterman actually did that to Jennifer Aniston, and she was extremely uncomfortable.
9. David Letterman asked Madonna to kiss a stranger
You know you’re starting to go senile when you tell your guest to go up to the audience and kiss some rando because it would “Knock him out.” Hey, at least he had the decency to add “on the forehead,” or Madonna would have gone full french on the dude, right?
