Drew Barrymore has some ‘splaining to do.
The pop culture icon is set to welcome her longtime friend David Letterman onto The Drew Barrymore Show on Thursday. But the late-night veteran has a bone to pick with Barrymore, who appeared many times as a guest during his tenure hosting The Late Show.
“I was thinking about our very special engagement that we had, and it was 30 years ago this year,” Barrymore gleefully shares. She’s referring to her infamous desktop dance on the April 12, 1995, episode of The Late Show, which concluded with wild-child-era Barrymore flashing a bedeviled Letterman. If it feels like that wild piece of pop culture history happened far more recently, it’s because Barrymore recreated the moment for Letterman’s replacement, Stephen Colbert, on a recent episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
The moment is especially fresh for Letterman, who tells Barrymore, “I need to talk to you about something, and I get the feeling I’m at the right place… A couple of weeks ago. I think I had — you ever have a dream that you can’t tell if it’s real or did you wake up? I don’t know, it was more of a nightmare. It was god awful, [and] very upsetting. It was so upsetting I TiVo’d it — Hal, roll that dream,” Letterman commanded, cutting to a clip of Barrymore’s recent homage.
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“The interesting thing about that dream, I think it was born of an actual occurrence in my life many, many, many years ago that I still carry with me in my subconscious, and cherish,” Letterman jokes, while a comically admonished Barrymore looks on in mock solemnity.
As the clip of Barrymore’s homage for Colbert flashes back to the original Letterman dance, the Emmy-nominated morning show host reacts, “There we go! Here it comes. Yep, there she is.”
CBS
When 20-year-old Drew flashes Letterman on screen, 50-year-old Drew playfully defends herself to the TV legend, “I kept my top on this time!”
Letterman notes in a moment of mock paternalism that he’s “not angry. I’m just disappointed.”
Barrymore apologizes, insisting that she “really did it to honor you.”
Letterman concedes that he doesn’t exactly deserve the apology: “Now why wasn’t I there if you were honoring me! That’s right, I don’t work there anymore. That explains that.”
Barrymore’s recent appearance on Colbert’s Late Show was intended as an homage to the host who has stewarded the late-night institution for 10 years. In July, CBS announced that it wasn’t just axing Colbert, but scrapping the entire franchise after 33 years on the air.
Though the network characterized the move as “purely a financial decision,” some have questioned the influence of a then-pending merger of CBS parent company Paramount Global to Skydance Media, which required approval from the Trump administration, a frequent target of Colbert’s criticism. Eight days after Colbert announced the cancellation, the FCC approved the merger.
Drew Barrymore Show/Ash Bean
Letterman has been one the most vocal critics of the cancellation, snarking a day after the decision was announced, “You can’t spell CBS without BS.” He doubled down days later, calling the decision “gutless” and saying of network executives, “There’s no fairness to these goons. These guys are bottom feeders.”
But it was all love on The Drew Barrymore Show, which airs weekdays on CBS.
