Connie Chung SPILLS THE TEA, Hunnies!

During Chung’s career, she became one of Letterman’s favorite guests, and fans felt there was chemistry between the late-night show host and the anchor, who’s been happily married to Maury Povich since 1984.

“I had this thing for him, and he had a thing for me, and I really think it was inexplicable in that respect,” she said of Letterman on Goldman’s podcast. “And yet I really didn’t have a thing for him. Do you know what I mean?” She further explained, “I love people who have a sense of humor and who are charming, and he was that when he was on the air.”

But, “Off the air, he’s dark … he’s a dark, unhappy sort of, I don’t mean he’s unhappy. He is a kvetch. He’s a goyishe kvetch.”

She also said of Letterman: “He’s anti-social is what he is.”

Chung, who left the news game in 2006, plays an interviewer grilling Grant’s character in the new series “The Undoing,” but told Goldman she annoyed the star — and the director.

“When Hugh Grant sat down, he was looking all rumpled. He’s one of those British rumpled fellows,” Chung said on the podcast. “And his tie was askew, and I am very OCD. So I said, ‘Hugh, straighten up your tie.’ And he goes and fixes it. And then one collar was outside of his suit. And I went, ‘Hugh, fix that.’ And then he was looking like Rodney Dangerfield. He should sit on the back of — like in ‘Broadcast News’ — sit on the back of your jacket, so that it’s nice and tidy.”

But when Chung was about to give Grant that tip, “He goes, ‘Now what?,’” she related, adding that Bier “gives me … an evil eye, as if ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’” (Chung doesn’t mention Bier by name, but calls her “the Danish director.” Bier directed all six episodes of the series, and is from Copenhagen.)

Chung said of Grant, “He was not very friendly. I had interviewed him right after ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ for his next movie. So when I saw him, I said, ‘Oh, hi. I interviewed you … do you remember?’ And he said, ‘No.’ So, I went, ‘OK‘ … I figured he was getting into his acting zone, whatever that is.”

On “The Originals” podcast, Goldman has also interviewed Michael J. Fox, Steve Madden, Joan Collins and others.

Reps for Rather, ABC News, Letterman, Grant and Bier did not comment.

Wow I did not realize she is 74!

[quote]the former ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN anchor

Bitch couldn't hold a job.

[quote]Instead, she found a scene “not unlike what Tonya Harding did to Nancy Kerrigan,” because, “when I got to ABC, both Diane and Barbara were in the same sort of arena.

I paid Hugh Downs to take a baseball bat to Chung's kneecaps, but his arthritic shoulder was acting up.

[quote]But while Rather was outwardly “very Texas gentlemanly,” she told Goldman, “If I turned my back, I felt like I might be in a scene of ‘Psycho’ in the shower.”

He probably kept telling her not to put so much starch in his shirts.

This is not really spilling the tea. Dan Rather fell from grace, Barbara Walters has dementia and Diane Sawyer's no longer a major player. If she wants to spill tea, let it be on someone who is still newsworthy. What's she got on Anderson Cooper?

I believe what she said about Letterman, dark and unhappy.

R7 I suspect that is true of most of the good/great comedians.

She's one of the only news people who seemed to have a personality.

Andrew Goldman's voice melts my ears. Horrible.

Did she say anything about Newt Gingrich's mama?

Tell us about Les Moonves!

Bingo!

Loved her on both the news and Letterman. She had "it."

I'd also love to know how she got along with Julie Chen. Julie Chen was persona non grata of the female newscaster bunch for some inexplicable reason. I wonder if Chung and Chen perhaps bonded due to their Asian heritage.

I remember Walters throwing major shade at Chen on one of her last shows.

When I saw her in the Hugh Grant HBO thing, I thought, "Who did she piss off?" because they went to the trouble of getting her to do the interview scene, put her name up on the walls of the set--but you only actually see her on camera for one line in a pretty long scene. You HEAR her asking Grant questions but the editing does everything to keep you from seeing her again--anytime she asks another question, the camera focuses on Hugh or someone else--never Chung. It was an obvious diss, like they were denying her any visibility without having to take on the expense of reshooting the scene to cut her out in full.

Fun fact: she went to high school in Hollywood with Ben Stein. He says she was a goody two-shoes and a try-hard and that he and his friends used to always make fun of her.

r7 Let's not forget that Cher called him out for being an asshole to his face.

If I remember correctly she apologized for calling him that but not because it was untrue.

Rhyme-with-a-witch cunt!!! Misogynist women must die in a grease fire.

I fucking love Connie. She had a great career. That's done now, but her husband still makes a ton of dough. She's free to hang around the Dakota and smoke her cigarettes.

Well, if I was Hugh, I would have been irritated too.

r19 = goyishe kvetch

[quote] Ben Stein. He says she was a goody two-shoes and a try-hard

I don't know if Ben Stein can call anybody else a try-hard.

Well - the world turns around Connie. I wonder what some other younger less experienced people thought of working with you.

Did she not ask any questions about interview 'gets' with Barbara and Diane before she started working there?

Something tells me Connie was no angel herself.

In one of her gigs, she was known as "high Q, low IQ Connie" popular with audiences but not very bright---I think it was CBS. This was back in the 80s. I didn't realize that she was still around, not that I ever thought much about it. I did notice that Maury was still around, looking pretty cadaverous, one afternoon when I was channel surfing.

Did she go in depth about this wonderful moment?

at the end of her CNN gig Connie had an interview with Rod Stewart where he was plugging one of his American Songbook anthology CDs. They ended up dancing........ so painful to watch... i'm still embarassed thinking about it...just godawful.

[quote] Fun fact: she went to high school in Hollywood with Ben Stein. He says she was a goody two-shoes and a try-hard and that he and his friends used to always make fun of her.

Consider the source.

Sounds interesting, her book. Not as juicy as Quincy Jones spilling the beans, but interesting.

I wish Quincy Jones would spill the beans. But his daughters will see to it that he doesn't. Cockblockers.

Well Quincy Jones has known everyone---I mean his early days included Lesley Gore and Miles Davis. I don't think Connie ever really knew people very well. I mean being married to schlockmeister like Maury.

They always find ways to remind you you're not White, Connie.

Does she reveal whether or not she uses MSG when she cooks?

Maury Povich makes $13 million per year for his show called ... "Maury."

I suspect Connie was the problem in every scenario she complained about.

And they called ME a no-talent opportunist!

[quote] Fun fact: she went to high school in Hollywood with Ben Stein. He says she was a goody two-shoes and a try-hard and that he and his friends used to always make fun of her.

Ben Stein is full of shit or kidding. Connie was born in DC and grew up in Silver Spring, Md.

r35. Somehow I don’t think Connie is worse than BW or DS.

Her accusations are:

Dan Rather was always a gentleman with her. She compares the experience to Janet Leigh being stabbed to death in Psycho.

Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer went after interviews that she wanted, and her bosses told her to bow out because she wasn't on their level. She compares this to Nancy Kerrigan having her kneecap smashed with a tire iron.

David Letterman isn't as funny or charming off the air as he is on.

While filming her one scene in a miniseries, she took it upon herself to tell the star to straighten his tie. He reacted with irritation and she told him to straighten his collar, at which point he went ballistic - wait, no he didn't, he merely said sarcastically "Anything else?" while the director glared at her, which should have made it clear to Connie that she had overstepped, but apparently it didn't.

Is Connie Chung on the spectrum or something? At the very least, she seems incredibly socially clueless. She also seems to enjoy dramatizing small incidents, turning mild friction into full-scale violence directed at her in her retelling of them.

Tl; dr: she's the problem.

I've always liked David Letterman but Connie's assessment sounds about right. I recently watched this video (in it's entirely), showing Dave's "feud" with Joan Collins over almost a 20 year span. (This really deserves a topic of it's own.)

Basically, Dave got pissed off because when Joan was at the height of her Dynasty fame, she wouldn't appear on his show. And the longer she resisted, the meaner his "jokes" about her became.

After a while, he didn't even bother to attempt to disguise his contempt for her behind jokes. He'd just say the meanest, most horrible shit about her on the air that he could think of. Even breaking into her dressing room with his cameras at one point and catching her in a compromising position. The vid starts off funny, but by the end I couldn't help thinking to myself, "What a hateful son of a bitch!" It was bullying plain & simple. I don't know how else to describe it. This shit would never fly today.

The video eventually shows that Dave had the opportunity to apologize to Joan, when he crashed a Conan O'Brien appearance of hers years later. Did he? Hell No. He was rude to her again! He's a mean, hateful MF!

I watched the video in it's ENTIRETY! Fuck!

I work at msnbc. I once chatted with her briefly in an elevator. It was 11:30 am and she was trashed. She reeked!

If a man tried to make comments to a woman like she made to Hugh Grant, there would be a huge me-too uproar about the man being inappropriate and sexist by telling a woman how he wants her to look. Women, you can't have it both ways.

I'll give her pass though because she probably dealt with sexist men telling her how to look during her entire career.

I was wondering if Maury still commuted from the Dakota to Connecticut for filming.

Only to discover.... they have a fucking shuttle, to get audience members from Harlem to Stamford... Obviously not anymore, but come on.

Connie Chung was offered the co-anchor position on Good Morning America, but turned it down - and Diane Sawyer wound up taking the job.

R43, it sounds as if Connie was trying to break the ice with Hugh by being "motherly". She most likely thought it was cute, but he quickly got annoyed.

I guess Connie didn't realize the show was going for a specific "look" for Hugh's character. On the show she's interviewing Hugh's character, with his lawyer at his side, about him being accused of murdering his mistress.

Connie Chung was the biggest journalist covering the Tonya Harding story, even flying on the same commercial flight to Norway that Tonya was on, for the Olympics. Connie Chung, of all people in the world, should know better than to say "What Tonya did to Nancy."

Back in the 90s, my husband appeared on Letterman. It was exciting hanging out in the green room and Paul Schafer, Teri Garr, and Graham Kerr ("Galloping Gourmet") were friendly and posed for photos with us. My husband (an author, whose guest shot was to promote his book) and I were both fans of Letterman and were supposed to be granted a pre-show audience with the star. As fly-over rubes, we were thrilled at the prospect. However, cryptic remarks by backstage minions caused us to suspect that Dave was a huge, unpleasant diva, who would not be up for having his ring kissed by hyperventilating hicks like us. First, we were told that I (the wife) would be denied admittance and eventually, my husband, of whom Dave was reportedly a fan, was allowed a VERY brief word with the comedian. Hobnobbing behind the scenes was a fun experience but it became obvious that Letterman's moods ruled the set and everybody tip-toed around him.

Oct 1991 - Flint MI author Ben Hamper. Teri was promoting her new show Good & Evil.

R50 is Jessica Fletcher?

Little Miss Nancy Drew at R50 is cracking this case wide open!

When everyone you work with is a "problem", you are the real problem.

I recall now and then Letterman would stop the show for a moment and ask the audience to imagine Connie Chung nude. Then sit there with a nice contented smile. I suppose the audience did the same.

Letterman could be a bully to his guests.

Cher got him good, but Shirley Maclaine destroyed him in her one and only appearance.

The night before the Nixon Supreme Court arguments I ,along with a few friends, camped overnight across the street from the Court. Early in the morning before dawn Connie came by to interview people on line. We were a wreck, bedraggled and wet from the dew on the ground. Connie looked perfect - every hair and thread in place and perky and pleasant. We hated her for that. Actually I always liked her.

That's why I have a hard time believing she was ever wrecked or smelled. She was always a perfectionist.

The torture of sleeping on the ground was worth it cause we snagged the last spots to get into court to hear the arguments. Numbers 111, 112, 113.

I was on the old Maury Povich show in the 90s (really silly themed show), and Maury was incredibly nice and well-prepared. He came back to the green room with a print out of my phone interview with his producer, and chatted with me about how he thought my segment would go, and did I have any ideas. He was remarkably the same on-camera, thanked me personally, and they had a limo drive me home. He told me Connie was a very big tipper and he knew a reputation like that gets around so they were treated wonderfully everywhere they went. I've always liked her after that.

[quote]Ben Stein. He says she was a goody two-shoes and a try-hard

Ben Stein was never a "try-hard" because he always did fine just coasting on being a straight, white, Jewish male, just like the rest of them!

[quote] Shirley Maclaine destroyed him

Good! For once she did something I liked. Letterman was an ass!

[quote]“When I went to ABC news, I joined with both Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer"... she found a scene “not unlike what Tonya Harding did to Nancy Kerrigan,” because, “when I got to ABC, both Diane and Barbara were in the same sort of arena of trying to get these big interviews. So when I tried to go after them, I was told I could not. That Barbara and Diane were the only ones who could compete for the interview and I had to stand down.'”

She thinks being denied a news story is like being attacked with a crowbar?

Okay.