Kesha calls Seinfeld hug snub "the saddest moment of my life"
In 2017, Jerry Seinfeld declined to hug pop star Kesha, proving to her why no one should meet their heroes
In what Best Show host Tom Scharpling rightly declared a very “clickable” moment, pop singer Kesha finally opened up about that hug Jerry Seinfeld declined a few years back. The incident might have been an easy win for Jerry “No hugging, no learning” Seinfeld, but for Kesha, it was “the saddest moment of my life.”
Speaking to Scharpling on The Best Show about her new album Gag Order, Ke$ha relayed what happened the night Seinfeld said, “No thanks,” in four seconds. After confirming that Scharpling was not friends with Seinfeld, Kesha began by explaining that she used to carry her Seinfeld DVDs with her around the world “so whenever it would get bumpy on the plane, I would pop in Seinfeld and feel like everything’s OK in the world and watch my buddy Jerry.”
Like Seinfeld, Kesha practices transcendental meditation, so imagine her surprise when she ran into the comedian at an event for the David Lynch Foundation, Lynch’s non-profit that promotes TM around the world. So when she saw Seinfeld there, she got a little excited.
“I get to the fucking charity event and I got really excited because he brings me peace and love and all things good in the universe,” she said. “And then he didn’t hug me in front of cameras. It was hilarious, but also so sad. It was the saddest moment of my life.”
Thankfully, she said not all of her heroes have been so anti-hug. She ran into Bob Dylan once, and “he gave me a really big hug.”
In the past, Seinfeld has also explained his reasoning for this. Apparently, he didn’t know who this woman was trying to hug him. He doesn’t “know every pop singer,” nor does he know “everyone,” so to him, Kesha was a “total stranger” asking for a hug “right in the middle of an interview.”
“When you get to be my age and you’ve done a couple things, you have your own reality,” he told Extra in 2017. “In my reality, I don’t hug a total stranger. I have to meet someone, say hello. I gotta start somewhere. Hug isn’t the first moment of a human, two humans. I never did that.”
Scharpling was right. This was a very clickable moment.