NEED TO KNOW
Katie Couric recalled losing the chance to interview Lady Gaga for 60 Minutes a year after pitching the interview
Couric recounted the experience in an appearance on Call Her Daddy on Wednesday, June 24
The assignment was ultimately given to Anderson Cooper in 2010
Katie Couric recalled being pushed out of interviewing Lady Gaga for CBS’ 60 Minutes—a year after pitching the singer for the show.
Couric, 69, discussed the experience in an appearance on Alex Cooper‘s Call Her Daddy podcast on Wednesday, June 24. The former CBS News anchor explained that contributing to CBS’ long-running 60 Minutes was her “dream” since she has watched the show since she “was a little kid.”
According to Couric, an executive at the newsmagazine seemed to oppose the idea of her conducting the interview.
“I think maybe because he wasn’t really consulted about bringing me over,” said Couric, who had previously worked for Today and NBC News before joining CBS News.
“I was sort of seen as somebody from a different network coming in and sort of muddying the waters,” Couric claimed of the 60 Minutes executive’s treatment. “I hadn’t come up in the CBS system. So I don’t know, he just didn’t like me.”
In the spirit of keeping up with “big, cultural moments,” Couric pitched the then up-and-coming Lady Gaga.
“I said, ‘There’s this incredible singer and I think she’s gonna be the next Madonna,'” the veteran journalist recalled of her pitch. “She’s so interesting. She went to Catholic school, but she’s so outrageous and she’s huge and she’s got, you know, a huge number one song. I think we should do a profile of this person: Lady Gaga.”
Couric said a producer who she now considers a close friend told her, “It’s just not for us.”
A year later, Gaga, 40, appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone, wore her famous meat dress to the MTV Video Music Awards, and released a string of memorable chart-topping hits, including “Paparazzi,” “Poker Face,” and “Bad Romance,” while building her singular image for her stage presence and sound.
Only then, Couric says, did 60 Minutes decide it was time for her to appear on the show.
Katie Couric Call Her Daddy
Credit: Call Her Daddy/Youtube
“I was like, ‘Okay, well she’s kind of overexposed now,'” Couric said on Call Her Daddy. “And I thought, you know, wouldn’t it be nice to get somebody right as they’re about to pop instead of a year later?”
Couric, still intrigued by the parallels between Madonna and Gaga, said that she pitched instead to interview the Catholic nuns who were the singer’s former teachers at Sacred Heart in New York’s Upper East Side. The journalist saw the pitch as a “juxtaposition of her background and this outrageous singer she’s become.”
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Looking forward to diving into the story, Couric says that she checked the CBS whiteboard where assignments were posted, where she saw that it read, “‘Lady Gaga, Anderson Cooper.'”
“It made me crazy,” Couric said, also sharing that she later experienced a similar scenario when planning an interview with Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time. The interview was instead given to Scott Pelley.
According to Couric, she was most frustrated that these decisions were being made “behind [her] back.”
Couric was ultimately able to join Gaga just a year later for the “Disease” singer’s 2011 ABC special, A Very Gaga Thanksgiving.
Despite these setbacks, Couric spent five years with 60 Minutes, and anchored CBS Evening News With Katie Couric with the network from 2006 to 2011.
PEOPLE reached out to reps for CBS for comment.
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