{"id":2489151,"date":"2026-07-05T17:34:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T17:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2489151"},"modified":"2026-07-05T17:34:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T17:34:24","slug":"many-celebrities-apparently-got-the-same-warning-before-going-on-david-letterman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/many-celebrities-apparently-got-the-same-warning-before-going-on-david-letterman\/","title":{"rendered":"Many Celebrities Apparently Got The Same Warning Before Going On David Letterman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><i>When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.<\/i><\/p>\n<figure class=\"relative mb-4\">\n<div class=\"relative\"><button aria-label=\"View larger image\" class=\"group absolute bottom-0 size-full\" data-ylk=\"elm:expand;itc:1;sec:image-lightbox;slk:lightbox-open;\"><span class=\"absolute bottom-3 right-3 rounded-full bg-primary p-3 opacity-100 shadow-elevation-3 transition-opacity duration-300 group-hover:block group-hover:opacity-100 md:p-[17px] lg:bottom-6 lg:right-6 lg:bg-primary\/90 lg:p-5 lg:opacity-0 lg:shadow-none\"><svg xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" viewbox=\"0 0 24 24\" aria-hidden=\"true\" focusable=\"false\" class=\"flex-none size-4 -scale-x-100 text-primary lg:size-6 [&amp;_path]:fill-current\"><path fill=\"currentColor\" d=\"M3.1 3.1V11h1.8V6.314l5.392 5.393 1.415-1.414L6.313 4.9H11V3.1zm17.8 17.8V13h-1.8v4.686l-5.393-5.393-1.415 1.414 5.393 5.393H13v1.8z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/button><dialog aria-label=\"Modal Dialog\" aria-modal=\"true\" class=\"fixed bottom-0 left-0 right-0 top-0 z-4 size-full max-h-none max-w-none bg-primary hidden\"\/><\/div><figcaption class=\"relative text-sm mt-1 pr-2.5\">\n<p>Credit: CBS<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">There\u2019s no question David Letterman left a major mark on the late night landscape, particularly during his time on <em>The Late Show<\/em> over at CBS. Celebrities over the course of decades interacted with the famously curmudgeonly man, who often kept people on their toes with acerbic observations and pointed questions. Letterman would later <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/entertainment\/im-sure-had-coming-show-041105750.html\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:say he \u201chad it coming\u201d when it came to any \u201ccriticism\u201d;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;say he \u201chad it coming\u201d when it came to any \u201ccriticism\u201d&quot;}\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\"><u>say he \u201chad it coming\u201d when it came to any \u201ccriticism\u201d<\/u><\/a> lobbed his way, but did you know the late night host was so eccentric that major stars were told not to compliment him?<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It\u2019s not the only example of <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/entertainment\/expert-wrote-books-night-tv-231500232.html\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:eccentric behavior by late night hosts;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;eccentric behavior by late night hosts&quot;}\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\"><u>eccentric behavior by late night hosts<\/u><\/a>, but Amy Poehler and Mindy Kaling both got candid about their experiences with Dave recently.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"mb-4 text-xl font-bold md:text-2xl\">Mindy Kaling And Amy Poehler Revealed They Were Advised Not To Be Too Nice To Letterman<\/h2>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Kaling recently gave Amy Poehler a compliment of the highest order when she said she loved the positive vibes the other NBC comedian brings to her now-famous <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=4cOSuUZvQRg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:\u201cGood Hang\u201d podcast;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;\u201cGood Hang\u201d podcast&quot;}\" class=\"link \"><u>\u201cGood Hang\u201d podcast<\/u><\/a>. You can feel the love in the room, but amusingly Kaling set up this compliment by pointing out she and Poehler used to get told \u201cit\u2019s like an insult\u201d to say something nice about David Letterman.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"mb-4 border-l-2 pl-5 italic text-tertiary\">\n<div class=\"\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Remember when we used to do David Letterman and the producers would be like, &#8216;Do not compliment him. He doesn&#8217;t know what to do with it\u2019? And you were like, &#8216;Oh, so it&#8217;s like an insult to compliment a host.&#8217;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The warning from her agents really stuck with her for years. In fact, it led her to go on shows over and over again where she spent time worrying about it not being \u201ccool\u201d to say something nice. She\u2019s been working on it, and she wanted to tell Poehler she was a fan of the way &#8220;Good Hang&#8221; works in light of that.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"mb-4 border-l-2 pl-5 italic text-tertiary\">\n<div class=\"\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">And then now, I felt like for other shows too I was like, \u2018Don&#8217;t do that,\u2019 and then it feeds into the whole thing of, like, it&#8217;s not cool to compliment. It was very formative when that producer was like, \u2018Don&#8217;t compliment him,\u2019 and it&#8217;s a hostile act. And yet I love compliments as a performer and, if someone came on my show and was like, \u2018I love the show.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Amy Poehler was also very familiar with the Letterman advice. Interestingly, when Kaling complimented her, Poehler in her typical way also did deflect the former <em>Mindy Project<\/em> star\u2019s compliment, joking:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"mb-4 border-l-2 pl-5 italic text-tertiary\">\n<div class=\"\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Literally, what are we doing? What are we going to do, be mean to each other?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">So, maybe not taking a compliment is an epidemic among hosts? Though, I will say Poehler was good-natured about the whole conversation, and it\u2019s always fun when totally unrelated factoids about other people get brought up by celebrities. In this case, David Letterman is famously known for hating compliments, and this specific topic has come up again and again over the years.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"mb-4 text-xl font-bold md:text-2xl\">Letterman Himself Has Admitted He Hates Compliments<\/h2>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Probably the most specific incident came in 2017, just two years after <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cinemablend.com\/television\/Late-Show-With-David-Letterman-Officially-End-68861.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:David Letterman had retired;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;David Letterman had retired&quot;}\" class=\"link \">David Letterman had retired<\/a> from <em>The Late Show<\/em>. That year, the former host was given an award: The Mark Twain Prize For American Humor. This meant there was an event and a bunch of celebrities attended. It also meant there were a lot of nice things said about Letterman, who even the <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/reliable-source\/wp\/2017\/10\/22\/at-david-lettermans-mark-twain-ceremony-comedians-decide-to-trump-or-not-to-trump\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Washington Post;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Washington Post&quot;}\" class=\"link \"><u>Washington Post<\/u><\/a> noted at the time, \u201chates compliments.\u201d In fact, when asked about people fawning over him, he admitted the whole thing was cringy to him.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"mb-4 border-l-2 pl-5 italic text-tertiary\">\n<div class=\"\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It\u2019s uncomfortable. So far I\u2019m having a very nice time, but I\u2019m afraid that will all diminish when people are on stage telling lies about me and then I\u2019ll start to wither and become uncomfortable and sweat through my shirt.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">David Letterman\u2019s entire comedic persona lives on that edge between funny and uncomfortable. He\u2019s often at his most engaging and amusing when there\u2019s just a sliver of awkwardness between himself and whomever he is talking with, whether that be a celebrity, a journalist, or just someone random he happens to be chatting with. He&#8217;s always willing to ask the uncomfortable thing, and that sometimes made him the <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cinemablend.com\/television\/Watch-David-Letterman-Beautiful-Touching-Final-Montage-72033.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:less popular late night host;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;less popular late night host&quot;}\" class=\"link \">less popular late night host<\/a> during his run.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">No one is perfect, of course, and that means sometimes he doesn&#8217;t tow that line correctly. Other times he does things like <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/entertainment\/tv\/articles\/keep-thinking-david-letterman-comparing-171944581.html\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:compare The Late Show ending to an adult bookstore coming in;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;compare The Late Show ending to an adult bookstore coming in&quot;}\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\"><u>compare <\/u><u><em>The Late Show<\/em><\/u><u> ending to an adult bookstore coming in<\/u><\/a>, and it works perfectly. No matter what, though, you never really know exactly what\u2019s going to come out of Dave\u2019s mouth. I\u2019m sure that can be very difficult, particularly when you are early in your celebrity career, wearing uncomfortable <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cinemablend.com\/tag\/celebrity-fashion\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:celebrity fashion;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;celebrity fashion&quot;}\" class=\"link \">celebrity fashion<\/a>, and trying to make a positive impression on late night \u2013 without literally saying anything positive to said host.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Credit: CBS There\u2019s no question David Letterman left a major mark on the late night landscape, particularly during his time on The Late Show over at CBS. Celebrities over the course of decades interacted with the famously curmudgeonly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2489153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[348302,490068,375058,356905],"class_list":["post-2489151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-amy-poehler","tag-compliment","tag-david-letterman","tag-mindy-kaling"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Many-Celebrities-Apparently-Got-The-Same-Warning-Before-Going-On.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2489151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2489151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2489151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2489154,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2489151\/revisions\/2489154"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2489153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2489151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2489151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2489151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}