Member Since: 3/15/2013
Posts: 32,106
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Madonna was high during her 1994 Letterman interview
says a Letterman producer, and here he explains the whole story
Quote:
In 1994 , Madonna was arguably the biggest female star. At the same time, due to her pioneering promiscuity and her seemingly insatiable interest in surly actors, athletes, and rappers, she was also endless fodder for the tabloids — and late-night hosts. Dave loved her; she was the gift that kept giving.
After discussing it with Dave, I proposed a plan I thought was pretty bulletproof, that would make her look good, be “funny,” and satisfy her larger goal of making Dave squirm. I got on the phone with Madonna, who was surprisingly and truly lovely, and pitched my idea: How about you go on and complain that he’s been taking shots? He will say it’s exaggerated, he loves you, etc. — and then you say, “Oh yeah? I actually brought some tape from the show.” And then you show, in succession, three of the most horrible jokes he has told — and ask him to explain each one. She signed off on the plan without hesitation.
The day of the show, she arrived to much fanfare and press anticipation, but with no entourage. Her only accompaniment was her makeup person, Kevyn Aucoin. I walked up to her dressing room, knocked on the door, put out my hand, and said, “Hi, I’m Daniel.” She didn’t get up or offer her hand. Instead she said, “Suckmadick.” I took a beat. “Sorry?” She looked at Kevyn, smiled, and said it again, slower, like a petulant 8-year-old child challenging a parent: “Suck–ma–dick.” She and Kevyn began laughing hysterically. I thought: We’re screwed. I smiled wanly and powered on: “Ha … OK, so this will pretty much go as we discussed. We’ve loaded up three pieces of video, each one worse than the other, and after each one …” She stopped me. “That’s too much to remember.”
Hmmm. I paused, now more annoyed than anything. “Uh, not really. It’s actually pretty simple — you show a tape. Get his reaction. Show another. Get his reaction. There are three …” “Yeah, I’m not going to remember all that.” Me, trying not to let my voice break and betray my now very urgent concerns: “Why not?” She started giggling again. “We smoked a little endo before we came here …” ****!
The intro I wrote probably didn’t help matters: “Our first guest tonight is one of the biggest stars in the world, and in the past 10 years she has sold over 80 million albums, starred in countless films, and slept with some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry.” But there was no way we could have anticipated what followed. It was the most censored late-night broadcast in television history, with Madonna saying “****” 14 times.
And if you think Letterman was happy about all the subsequent attention and newspaper coverage the interview brought, you’d have guessed wrong.
Compounding matters was the fact that Madonna would not leave the stage.
Counting Crows was just about to make its network television debut — and we were going to have to bump the band if Madonna didn’t budge. This was a problem I’d created, and now it was up to me to salvage the rest of the show. As Paul and the band blasted their mid-break song, I walked onstage and said loudly, “Say hi to the audience.” Madonna waved. As she waved, I took her hand, as if I was helping her up — and I did, in fact, lightly pull her up. And over the band I said loudly again, “Say goodbye …” Confused, she waved. Still holding her hand I led her offstage.
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http://www.madonnarama.com/posts-en/...ed-14-f-bombs/
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