Understanding the feud between David Letterman and Quentin Tarantino
Working as a late-night host must feel like performing a social tightrope act most of the time. Even though there’s a good chance that the host has never met their guests before, they are required to establish a rapport with them very quickly to make sure they can open up for the audience and give a decent interview. Humour is usually a good way to break the ice, but David Letterman was unprepared when talking with Quentin Tarantino’s girlfriends.
During his prime, Letterman was always known for his off-the-cuff humour, which was a bit more smug than what people were used to from his contemporaries like Jay Leno. Instead of just conducting a decent interview, Letterman would try out different things during his show and often argue against causes he didn’t like, quickly garnering him the reputation of being a lovable smartass.
When remembering some of the biggest moments on the show, Letterman recalled getting into hot water with Quentin Tarantino without him even being there. After interviewing one of his female guests, Letterman went into a schtick about being heartbroken that one of his guests was dating Tarantino, telling Desus and Mero: “I was saying, ‘No, you’re not dating Quentin Tarantino.’ And she said, ‘Yes, yes I am.’ And I said, ‘No, please tell me this isn’t true.’ Now I’m joking! I’m thinking the idea is Quentin Tarantino is this movie store nerd. So I’m [joking] about how this glorious movie star is dating this little squirrelly guy”.
Though Letterman may have meant everything in good fun, the director was not impressed. A few days after the show aired, Letterman remembered Tarantino being furious with him, detailing an intense conversation he had over the phone with him, recalling, “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?’”.
Given the man’s body of work and language, Tarantino was far from the movie nerd that Letterman had taken him for. With the massive successes of films like Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, the famous director has been known to get his hands dirty in his scripts and would probably inflict the same pain on anyone who wanted to call him out for being a nerd.
Not to be outdone, Letterman knew he had gold on his hands, getting his producer on the other end of the phone to detail Tarantino’s comments. Towards the end of the phone call, Tarantino threatened to beat the snot out of Letterman with a bat when he was in New York. Although Letterman gladly welcomed the challenge, it would be a long time before the two eventually met face-to-face.
It wasn’t until Tarantino appeared on Letterman’s show years later to promote Inglorious Basterds that the late-night host got the chance to meet Tarantino. After the director arrived on his show, Letterman took the chance to be cheeky, going into Tarantino’s dressing room with his publicist and asking him for an apology over what he said years before. Though Tarantino isn’t one to make nice all the time, his publicist twisted his arm into half-heartedly apologising…before Letterman asked to bring the argument up on the show. Late-night hosts might like to push boundaries of what they can do in the late show format, but Letterman knew how to push his guests just enough too far for entertainment.
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