How has David Letterman been a jerk (in public)?

This thread is NOT about Dave’s alleged infidelity/affairs/sexual harassment. There is already at least one thread dealing with that topic. If you want to talk about Dave being a jerk in private, please do so there.

But almost any time Dave is discussed, someone will usually come along and say he’s a jerk, is mean, and treats guests or members of the public badly.

I’ve been a fan of Dave’s almost since the first Late Night episode, and watch him practically every night, and I just don’t see it. Through my fading memory, ISTR that he was a bit more abrasive toward celebrity guests on the NBC show, and a few years ago Cher did famously tell Dave that she hadn’t been a guest more often because he was an “asshole.” Of course, many of the apparent feuds on the NBC show were staged, including incidents with Andy Kaufman, Brother Theodore, Charles Grodin, and a few others I can’t recall at the moment. And in the other thread I mentioned a few more recent cases (Madonna, Joaquin Phoenix) where the guests were being jerks and Dave merely responded in kind.

But I’d like someone to provide some unprovoked examples of Dave being a jerk or making people look like idiots, so I can better understand the enmity he seems to provoke. YouTube should make this fairly easy, right? In the other thread Starving Artist couldn’t come up with any specific incidents, for which I don’t blame him. But he’s not alone in thinking Dave is a jerk, and I’d like to see if I just have different ideas of what constitutes jerkhood, or if I’ve been blinded by my appreciation of Dave.

I’ll get the ball rolling with the only examples I could think of that might be perceived as mean. From the other thread:

I recall one time when Rupert was acting as a waiter at an outdoor cafe, and Dave had him serve a drink to a customer with his thumb actually in the liquid. When the woman called him on it and asked for another drink, he came back wearing rubber gloves, but with his thumb still inside. The woman really exploded.

IIRC, at one point someone did actually threaten to beat Rupert up over something Dave had had him say, and that’s when they stopped doing those bits.

They were rather outrageous, but mainly the gag was that Rupert/Dave was acting like an idiot and provoking ordinary folks to amusement, surprise, or (rarely) anger. Presumably after it was over, they all enjoyed the joke and gave their consent for the piece to be aired. I don’t recall these segments making the people on the street look stupid.

So how has Dave been a jerk?

I think the most oft-cited example you’ll get is when Dave kept badgering Paris Hilton about her stint in jail after she was released. Of course, I thought it was hilarious (he was really pounding on the “I matured in prison” bit that Paris was spewing at the time) and the whole reason she was on the show was to show the world she was out of prison.

But yeah, Dave was a bit of a jerk then.

Oh, yeah. I remember that.

Wait, are you telling me that there are people in this world who have sympathy for Paris Hilton?

What I’ve heard is that he’s really shy and not the type of person who’ll react favorably to someone coming to him and asking for his autograph. If that’s the only personal experience you have with him, I guess I can see how you might get the impression he’s an asshole.

Oh, he’s definitely weird. I’ve read enough about him to know that he has serious personality issues.

Back on the NBC show, during a commercial break, Teri Garr asked him if he was okay, and he wrote “I hate my life” on a piece of paper and showed it to her. He’s also said (back in the 1980s, I think) that he’s only happy during the one hour a day when they’re taping the show.

But he’s also a typical Midwesterner who doesn’t like to complain or show his emotions, and who tries, I think, to maintain an outwardly calm and polite facade.

However he may treat his staff and co-workers, I’ve never heard of him being rude or unpleasant to a member of the public, except, of course, when they were stalking him or landing helicopters on his property. It wouldn’t necessarily shock me, but I’m still looking for examples of jerkitude on the show, not IRL. Preferably with YouTube cites.

There’s the whole “hose outside the theater” bit. Maybe I’m guilty of selection bias, but I don’t recall seeing a pedestrian who got hit by the spray laugh and enjoy the prank.

Ehhhh… he’s always been a jerk, but a self-hating one. Well known, since forever. Basically, even if he is from the Midwest, he’s a perfect New Yorker.

I can’t recall any outrageous event, but when he’s presented with guest weirdness, he’s not one to gloss over it like pretty much every other late night host would. The Paris Hilton one is good. I also recall the one with Harmony Korine:

and Joaquin Phoenix:

and Farrah Fawcett:

or he’s a viewer male segment you wouldn’t see Jay Leno do:

Or when he called out McCain for ditching his show:

I gotta say, I like Letterman, but I can see why people think he’s a jerk.

Wow, nice typos on the, ‘here’s a viewer mail segment’ link. Apologies.

As long as you do it within five minutes, you can edit your own post.

You haven’t been watching enough. I recall several who were waiting around hoping to be soaked. And generally he starts the spray when no one’s in range, or when they’re mostly out of range, so they only get a little bit wet. Then it’s up to them to walk into it, which some do, or run away, which more do.

There was a case recently where he sprayed a woman who turned out to be pregnant. (It wasn’t easy to tell from the camera angle.) She turned angrily back to the theater, and staffers rushed out to apologize and make sure she was okay. She was later shown being helped into a cab with some gifts.

So, okay, that has the potential to annoy some people, but a little water on a hot summer day isn’t exactly a punch in the mouth. It’s prankish, but is it really jerkish?

I’m with you on self-hating, but I’m asking for cites on the jerk part, as manifested on the show. Got any?

Oh, come on. If he DIDN’T make fun of her for maturing during her 84 minutes of prison, I think he’d be a jerk. Or, well, a pussy.

I read once in Rolling Stone that it’s well known in the industry that Krusty the Clown is based in large part on Letterman (I think many Late Show writers went on to write for the Simpsons).
If true, there is plenty of “jerk-ish” behavior to choose from!

“If this is anyone but Steve Allen, you’re stealing my bit!”

Ah, so we can hold Dave responsible for everything Krusty has done. He really must be a jerk, then! :rolleyes:

Hilton spent 45 days in jail.

He said “if”, ferchristsake. I don’t think Stephe actually meant they were identical.

Anyhow, this thread reads as a long list of qualifiers. I don’t know much about Letterman’s personal life, but your posts come across as:

“Except for this, this, these things, these other things over here, and this other one thing, what has Letterman done to be a jerk?”

The hell she did. She was SENTENCED to 45 days, but served out about half of that, according to your own cite.

Well, at least he can blame everything on his Percocet addiction! :smiley:

I still remember the first time I ever saw him REALLY acting like a jerk… yet, oddly enough, that was the night I first became a big fan.

Anyone else remember the night Nastassia Kinski came on with that ridiculous wave in her hair? Letterman was brilliant at mocking her while not explicitly saying anything that she could point to as rude mockery.

Most other talk show hosts would never have been jerky enough to ridicule a guest that way. I actually LIKED him for doing it!

I don’t think I’ve granted that most of the things mentioned so far are all that jerkish in my book, or if they are, they didn’t happen on air, which is one of my conditions. I’m not trying to pick on Starving Artist, but over in the other thread he said:

These strike me as rather harsh, but not very different from sentiments voiced by others, particularly when comparing Dave to Jay or other late night hosts.

If this is mostly based on reports of how he treats his employees or others when he’s not on air, fine. But they often seem, like Starving, to be saying he’s a jerk on air, and I don’t see it. (Perhaps it’s because I’m a jerk, too. But don’t they say it takes one to know one?)

I suppose the most damning examples presented in this thread so far are the interviews with Harmony Korine and Farrah Fawcett, both of whom are rather eccentric. Dave does mock them a bit, although both play along with it, and neither seems to be particularly upset by anything he says or does. And I don’t think anything *he *does makes them look worse. They’re both pretty weird all on their own.

The viewer mail thing was just plain funny, right? Does anyone really think he was sincerely giving the letter-writer the finger? Or being a jerk? That was a joke about network censorship, because he wouldn’t be allowed to “flip the bird” right side up, but he can, upside down.

(Thanks for phreesh for finding those clips!)

And as for Joaquin Phoenix and the famous time Madonna refused to leave the stage, when a guest makes a point of jerking Dave around, he’s perfectly capable of returning the favor. Wouldn’t anyone? Doing otherwise would just make you a pussy, as Freudian Slit said.

astorian: I don’t remember that incident, and unfortunately, it’s no longer on YouTube. Here’sanother account of it. But you must really be a jerk for liking it so much. Welcome to the club! :smiley:

Has Leno ever had to deal with someone being a jerk to him on air? How did he handle it? Do some people think Leno is a jerk?