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Howard Stern interviews David Letterman

(Page 2 of 5)

Picture of Howard and Dave

Uncensored interview transcript of Letterman's appearance on the Howard Stern Show.

STERN: Word association. Kathie Lee Gifford.

LETTERMAN: Lovely, lovely woman.

STERN: Really?

LETTERMAN: Yes.

STERN: You feel that way?

LETTERMAN: Yes.

STERN: Would you like to have sex with her?

LETTERMAN: Yes.

QUIVERS: You'd like to have her sing on your show.

LETTERMAN: Yes.

STERN: Why do you have her sing on your show?

LETTERMAN: Because I think if we have her sing on the show, I might be able to have sex with her.

STERN: I think if you were honest, you'd say, yes, she's attractive, but you can't stand the vapidness of Kathie Lee Gifford.

QUIVERS: And you're making fun of her by having her sing.

LETTERMAN: Nothing could be farther from the truth. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

STERN: And by having her on --

QUIVERS: And by singing especially. It's a goof.

STERN: -- you're goofing on her, but I mean, she doesn't know. I mean, I think you're goofing on her.

LETTERMAN: I think she's goofing on everybody, don't you?

STERN: All right. Are you ready?

LETTERMAN Ready for what?

STERN: Let's talk personal now.

LETTERMAN: All right. Here we go.

STERN: Merrill Markoe I've had on this show many times, your long-time girl friend.

LETTERMAN: Don't pick on Merrill. STERN: No. I think she's terrific. I think she's terrific, but I can understand, you became very famous, and then you have to experience the better side of life.

LETTERMAN: Oh, stop it. You stop it.

STERN: Would you consider yourself a womanizer?

LETTERMAN: No.

STERN: I can't figure you out. I mean, if I was in your situation -- you're smart. You got your divorce early on.

LETTERMAN: Yeah.

STERN: Very smart.

LETTERMAN: Very smart to get the divorce early on.

STERN: Well, you never had to give up any of your dough.

LETTERMAN: I had nothing when we got divorced.

STERN: Perfect. That's even better. So all of a sudden you got no wife. You're a single guy.

LETTERMAN: Right.

STERN: You become David Letterman. And you didn't get laid a lot in high school, right?

LETTERMAN: No. All my life I never got laid at all. I just don't -- some guys --

STERN: When did you lose your virginity?

LETTERMAN: What makes you think I have? I used to work with guys --

STERN: Yeah, right.

LETTERMAN: I used to work with guys in Indianapolis. There was a guy who was like, I don't know, a director or something.

STERN: Right.

LETTERMAN: And one morning he comes to work, and he's like an hour late, and everybody -- because, you know, you got nothing else -- it's a local station, you got nothing to talk about so, "Well, where the hell were you?" (In a funny radio voice) "You're not gonna believe it, man. I'm driving 465. This beautiful woman in a car pulls right up next to me. She starts waving and honking. The next thing I know, we're in a hotel and I'm just screwing my brains out. I've never seen her before in my life."

STERN: Right.

LETTERMAN: Well, that never happened to me.

(Laughter and noise from the cast.)

STERN: That never happened to you.

LETTERMAN: Hey, how about that little radio voice though? We're doing like a little radio play here. That was pretty good, wasn't it?

STERN: You're doing very good. You're doing good.

LETTERMAN: (radio voice) "Hey, man, so the guy says" --

STERN: That's theater of the mind. Very good.

LETTERMAN: Was Jim Belushi in here?

STERN: Yeah.

LETTERMAN: How was he?

STERN: He was good. He did a real good job.

LETTERMAN: I haven't seen Jim in a long time.

STERN: He was fun. We a good time.

LETTERMAN: What did you talk about?

STERN: And he was grateful to you. He told me off the air --

LETTERMAN: Well, I like him. I've always thought he was a very nice man.

STERN: He said when he was at Saturday Night Live he was low man on the totem pole, and you would put him on every once in awhile.

LETTERMAN: Well, he was always real good on the show.

STERN: Yeah, I mean, that's what you did for me, because we were talking about it. When I was at NBC, I always got my --

LETTERMAN: (in a radio voice.) Howard, Howard, Howard.

STERN: You don't want to talk about it?

LETTERMAN: No, no. I'm just making noise. I don't get to be on radio much. I'm just making some noise here. I got the cans on.

STERN: All right. Get back to your personal life.

LETTERMAN: No. I just want to talk for a second about when you used to be on the show.

QUIVERS: You'd rather talk about that.

LETTERMAN: Well, I can talk about that for a minute. STERN: No. When I first got on the David Letterman Show --

LETTERMAN: Yeah. You were enormous. You were huge. You were a balloon.

STERN: No, no, no. I was at NBC radio. They are beating me up pretty good, and then you had me on as a guest.

LETTERMAN: That's right.

STERN: And by having me on as a guest, it sort of elevated me in their eyes. QUIVERS: That helped a lot.

STERN: It helped a lot.

LETTERMAN: The first time I knew of you in that building, one night it was about 7:00 o'clock, and a couple of guys get off the elevator on the 14th floor, you know, just guys, you know, just that kind of, hey, just that kind of guy.

STERN: Yeah, guys, guys.

LETTERMAN: And I walked out and I said, "Can I help you guys?"

(radio voice) And they said, "Yeah. Can you tell me where they do the Howard Sterns show?"

STERN: Right.

LETTERMAN: Just like the guy we were talking about in Indianapolis who got laid on the way to work. It's that same voice.

STERN: Same guy. Good impression.

LETTERMAN: (radio voice) "Howard Sterns, Man."

STERN: Talk about your personal life. So you can have any girl -- you once got mad at me because I talked about your -- I read an article in the Enquirer. You yelled at me during the commercial, during the show.

LETTERMAN: That's right. It was upsetting to me because your comments had made my -- they were upsetting to me and to my girl friend.

STERN: Right.

LETTERMAN: And so when you're in a relationship, if you don't stand up for something that's unpleasant or making your girl friend unhappy, then you're just a weasel, you're scum. STERN: Yeah, so meanwhile I was in the middle of trying to be funny.

LETTERMAN: I had to take you down a peg, pal.

STERN: You did.

LETTERMAN: I knocked the wind out of you, buddy.

STERN: What's weird about that incident, I was in the middle of trying to be funny on your show.

LETTERMAN: (In his funny radio voice.) Howard, Howard, Howard, Howard.

STERN: Listen to me. Stay with me on this.

LETTERMAN: Yeah, I'm with you.

QUIVERS: You know, because I was kind of wondering how she would know he stood up for her.

LETTERMAN: In the middle of trying to be funny.

STERN: He told her.

LETTERMAN: In the middle of trying to be funny.

QUIVERS: It wasn't on the air.

STERN: He went home.

LETTERMAN: When will that pass be completed? You're in the middle of trying to be funny.

STERN: Imagine this.

QUIVERS: The whole idea is to do it in public so that everybody knows.

STERN: You should have told me off on the show.

LETTERMAN: I was graceful enough. I was gracious enough. I did the gentlemanly thing.

STERN: First of all, I went home that night. I was all shook up.

LETTERMAN: Here's Howard trying to be funny, in the middle of trying to be funny.

STERN: I started to write Dave a letter to say, "Hey, listen."

LETTERMAN: Oh, that will be good, a letter from Howard.

STERN: No, but I never sent it, and I'll tell you why. I was sitting there, I was saying, "Well, what did I do wrong?" I goof around about everyone.

LETTERMAN: Of course you do. I understand that.

STERN: Your girl friend is probably a beautiful woman, but it was a bad picture of her in the Enquirer.

LETTERMAN: I understand that.

STERN: They had her jogging with her hair back.

LETTERMAN: I understand that. You understand that. She doesn't understand that. She is unaccustomed to having people say unpleasant things about her on the radio, and I had to react to that. That's all that was.

STERN: But I was in the middle -- wasn't I in the middle of trying to be funny? You don't yell at me when I'm --

LETTERMAN: You're still in the middle of trying to be funny, Howard.

QUIVERS: It's a long middle.

STERN: I see. So you're still with the same girl friend?

LETTERMAN: Yeah.

STERN: You are?

LETTERMAN: Yeah.

STERN: You stick to the same girl?

LETTERMAN: Yeah.

STERN: But you will never marry again; is that true?

LETTERMAN: No, I'll get married again.

STERN: You will?

LETTERMAN: Yeah, sure.

STERN: But you're not gonna.

LETTERMAN: What do you mean? I'm gonna get married. See, you've been married once.

STERN: Right.

LETTERMAN: You only want to be married once, right?

STERN: Well --. Yeah. I would like to experience my fame and be able to go out with women. That would be an interesting proposition to me.

LETTERMAN: Yeah.

STERN: That would be an interesting proposition to me.

LETTERMAN Right, sure.

STERN: Because, like you said, I never got laid.

LETTERMAN: So get the divorce.

STERN: No.

LETTERMAN: Lose half of everything you have.

STERN: But I love my wife.

LETTERMAN: Automatically lose half of everything you have.

STERN: No, I can't deal with that. I love my wife. I can't imagine what it would be like to be single and be able to get women.

LETTERMAN: Right.

STERN: And you're experiencing that and yet --

QUIVERS: No, he's not.

LETTERMAN: It's another frustration for you. It's sort of like being in the middle of trying to be funny.

STERN: But you've done the whole actress thing.

LETTERMAN: I've done the whole actress thing?

STERN: Yeah, right, you've dated actresses.

LETTERMAN: I've never dated an actress.

STERN: After Merrill you never went and like dated some of the women from the show?

LETTERMAN: No.

STERN: That never happened?

LETTERMAN: No.

STERN: What's going on?

LETTERMAN: Well, they don't want any part of me.

STERN: Oh, that's so wrong.

LETTERMAN: No, they don't want any part of me.

QUIVERS: What about that thing where he wrote on his hand, "I hate myself"?

STERN: Yeah, to Teri Garr.

QUIVERS: That whole thing. Isn't that flirting?

STERN: That's a move. Diamond, is that a move?

(Diamond shakes her head.)

STERN: Oh, all right, you can't say.

LETTERMAN: That's a move, sure. No. The beginning of the show had not gone very well, and I was upset because the audience wasn't responding because --

STERN: You take it too seriously.

LETTERMAN: -- because I was not funny. I was in the middle of trying to be funny.

STERN: All right. We're running a bit there.

LETTERMAN: I was in the middle of trying to be funny.

STERN: But didn't Johnny Carson teach you to chase broads? I mean, he is your idol.

LETTERMAN: Yes, yes, he did. He was running a seminar for like four weekends at his house in Malibu. You'd go out there and he'd hire actresses to come in and you'd chase broads.

(Commercials.)

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