“He’s Going to Ask What He Wants”: Male Talk Show Hosts and Sexism

Have you ever thought about slipping into celebrities’ shoes? No, I don’t mean their designer shoes that match their luxurious lifestyle—I mean the tougher parts of their life like dealing with talk show hosts. There have been countless times recorded on talk show TV of hosts badgering their guests with private or inappropriate questions. Often, the most cringe-worthy moments on talk shows occur between male talk show hosts and woman celebrities. You may think celebrities are resilient, but they're human, just like you and I.

On March 1st, 2021, Paris Hilton released an episode of her This Is Paris podcast with Nicky Hilton, and she shared her feelings about David Letterman and her interaction with him on his show in 2007. This conversation sparked some discussion on Twitter about Letterman and got people talking about the talk show industry's horrors. Whether or not you saw this when it aired, it’s not really fresh in all of our memories, but clearly, if Paris is talking about this 14 years later, it had a lasting effect on her.

Paris’s co-host, Hunter March, says, “If you’re doing an interview with David Letterman, he’s going to ask what he wants and how he wants to do it.” After he asked her about what happened in that interview, she mentions, “I was in tears, crying and shaking.”

Basically, Letterman’s PR team lied to Paris about the questions they would ask, and he kept pushing her for answers. He brought up her then-recent arrest by asking her if she liked New York and then, “How’d you like being in jail?” She obviously was trying to refuse his questions, but he kept pushing.

This conversation sparked some discussion on Twitter about Letterman and got people talking about these rough moments on talk shows. In 2013, Letterman had an interview with Lindsey Lohan and brought up her addictions. He heckled her about her intent to go back to rehab. She was there to promote her movie and tried to get him back on that subject, but like March said, “he asks what he wants.” Lohan ended up crying, and this video was all over YouTube.

There are moments when celebrities took over the narrative and clapped back at the hosts. But these cases are few and far between, and often only between, a woman host and woman celeb, or a male host and male celeb.

Anne Hathaway took over the narrative in 2011 when Matt Lauer said, “I’ve been seeing a lot of you lately,” in reference to a paparazzi photo that showed up her dress. “I’m sorry that we live in a culture that commodifies the sexuality of the unwilling participants,” Hathaway says in response to his comments.

All of these women just want to talk about their projects, which is why they’re being interviewed in the first place. Lauer was fired in 2017, but that’s still 6 years of more sexist comments made to other women guests.

“To ask her questions designed to humiliate her is cruel. I don’t think that would happen today,” Nicky Hilton says on the This Is Paris podcast.

Today, we see women celebrities torn apart mainly on social media rather than TV. Which poses the question, have hosts of these popular talk shows and news shows learned their lesson? I’m sure there will be more cringe-worthy interviews in the future, but hopefully, they will not be as demeaning, embarrassing, and upsetting as in the past.

Whether it be on social media or TV these women should be able to share their projects and be honored by their work. We need to uplift the women we look to for entertainment—and more importantly, respect their privacy.