David Letterman says he 'misjudged' Kim Kardashian: 'I had used her as a joke'
David Letterman’s interview with Kim Kardashian for My Next Guest Needs No Introduction — in which she opens up about working with President Trump and the O.J. Simpson trial’s impact on her family — is already making waves ahead of its Oct. 21 premiere. But it’s not the first time the pair have sat down together.
In a new interview with the New York Times coinciding with the launch of his Netflix show’s third season, the veteran talk show host says he wrong to write off Kardashian as a vapid reality star and butt of many of his Late Show jokes. According to her IMDb profile, the star made six appearances on his show between 2008 and 2013.
“Oh, I was at the head of that list,” he says of Kardashian long being fodder for comedians like himself. “I can remember when she would be booked on the show, it was like, I don’t know anything about her, and I’ve never seen her show.”
It was when he met with Kardashian’s husband, Kanye West, for a Season 2 episode of My Next Guest Needs No Introduction which aired in 2019 that he realized, “Oh, I’ve misjudged this woman.”
“After we met with Kanye West, I had a long talk with her at their home, and I started to think about how I had used her as a joke and regarded her as someone not to be taken seriously,” he says. “I found that that impression was not the end of the story. She had a family. She has her prison reform program. I won’t comment on the ease of being married to Kanye West. And if she can keep a show like that on the air for all those years, that’s an accomplishment. If you can stay in business on television that long, good for you.”
In addition to Kardashian, Season 3 of My Next Guest Needs No Introduction sees Letterman meet with Dave Chappelle, Lizzo and Robert Downey Jr.
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