David Letterman unpacks bizarre Quentin Tarantino feud during delightful Desus & Mero interview
The legacy of late night collided with the format’s freshest faces in a cloud of smoke on Desus & Mero this week, when David Letterman linked up with the Bodega Boys for a sprawling, hilarious interview. Letterman, who reveals himself to be a big fan of the pair—“These guys, this is it. This is the future. This is the way it ought to be,” he recalls thinking when he first watched them—cycled through a number of topics across 33 minutes, from his Netflix series to losing awards to hot pepper-related hearing loss.
Most amusing, however, was an anecdote about a feud of sorts with Quentin Tarantino. “There was one guest on the show and her girlfriend was someone [Tarantino] was dating. A famous star,” he recounted. “And I was saying, ‘No, you’re not dating Quentin Tarantino.’ And she said, ‘Yes, yes I am.’ And I said, ‘Oh, please tell me this isn’t true.’” Letterman goes on to explain that, obviously, he was doing a bit: “I’m pretending that I’m stunned that this glorious movie star is dating this little squirrelly guy,” he explains.
Tarantino didn’t see the humor, however. A few days later, Letterman found himself on a call with the director. “He starts screaming at me, ‘I’m going to beat you to death, I’m going to kill you. I’m coming to New York and I’m going to beat the crap out of you. How can you say that about me?’…And on and on and on, like the guy is full-blown, clinically goofy.”
Tarantino did, however, return to the show some years later, only for Letterman to demand an apology. Tarantino reluctantly offered one, but didn’t want to turn the feud into content by discussing it on the show. “As we say in hip-hop, he didn’t want the smoke,” Desus cracked.
Without missing a beat, Letterman replied, “That’s what I said to him, ‘You don’t want the smoke.’”
Watch the full interview below. The Tarantino story, which contains even more bizarre layers, begins roughly six minutes in.
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