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If you’ve ever wanted to get to know Lady Gaga better Stephen Colbert is here to help. On Monday night’s (Dec. 1) Late Show, Colbert revisited an interview he did with Mother Monster earlier this year at New York’s The Bitter End nightclub, during which she participated in his seriously silly Colbert Questionert interrogation.
The host hit her with an easy one early one: the best sandwich. Well, it wasn’t that easy. Gaga quickly answered Italian sub, but then busted out her impeccable French to give props to ham, butter and cheese on a baguette. “So an Italian sub, but in French,” Colbert clarified.
Then things started to get a bit more serious with a query about the first concert Gaga ever attended. Turns out it was a Jingle Ball show where the Goo Goo Dolls played amid a flurry of fake snow that broke her brain. “They had snow and I was losing my mind. It was my first experience with production in an arena. I was crying,” Gaga recalled.
According to Gaga, the scariest animal is any really large bird, like a big, scary hawk that might spirit you away to its nest and, if she had to choose between apples and oranges, she’d definitely go orange, seemingly to Colbert’s chagrin.
“You judged me,” she said in mock horror. I felt you go, ‘oh, New York, big apple!’” No, Colbert explained, it’s just that you can’t spread peanut butter on an orange, though Gaga did remind him that you can dip an orange in dark chocolate, which seemed to ease his mind.
To her recollection, Gaga said she’s never asked another famous person for their autograph, but when fans give her a piece of their art she does ask them to sign it.
And then came the big one, or as we like to call it the Keanu Question: what do you think happens when we die? “I’m not sure,” Gaga admitted with a heavy sigh. “I think we all vanish into each other. I say that on stage every night, but I think it’s just what I believe… Like I definitely believe that the soul is like kind of forever here in some way. That you go from being in one place to being everywhere.” Asked if she could sometimes sense those souls, Gaga said yes, that sometimes when people pass she thinks “‘they’re everywhere now.’”
Gaga said her favorite action movie is the 1993 Clint Eastwood political thriller In the Line of Fire, that she prefers a window seat for a feeling of safety and that her favorite smell is, awww, the scent of her fiancé Michael Polansky’s neck, noting that he doesn’t wear cologne and that bottled scents are her least favorite smell.
For a probing question about her earliest memory, Gaga got existential, asking for a clarification about whether it was her earliest memory in life. “Or before life if you can think that early,” Colbert shot back. Turns out the first thing Gaga can remember is getting really excited when her parents gave her a toy kitchen set. “I remember being really excited because I could play house,” she said.
As for what song Gaga would pick if she only had one tune to listen to for the rest of her life, Gaga chose John Lennon’s “Imagine,” explaining that she grew up very close to the Strawberry Fields Lennon memorial in New York’s Central Park. “That has a very special significance for me,” she said.
And finally, she described her life in five words: “It’s going to be great, hopefully.”
Gaga is preparing to wrap up her Mayhem Ball tour dates for the year with a pair of upcoming shows at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, Australia on Friday (Dec. 5) and Saturday (Dec. 6).
Watch Gaga take the Colbert Questionert below.
The same week he made his Billboard Hot 100 debut as a recording artist, Grammy-winning producer, actor and R&B star Leon Thomas made his live television debut on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on Thursday (Feb. 6). Surrounded by his band on a red-lit stage with a projection of his Mutt album cover behind […]
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Kamala Harris took part in major interviews with Howard Stern and Stephen Colbert, closing out a busy media day for her campaign.
Tuesday (Oct. 8) turned out to be a major media blitz for Vice President Kamala Harris, as she took part in interviews with Howard Stern and Stephen Colbert after appearing on ABC’s The View. The Democratic presidential nominee’s appearance on Stern’s Sirius XM show had a few key moments, beginning with Stern blasting former President Donald Trump for declining a 60 Minutes interview. “It just says so much,” Stern said. “He didn’t want to be fact-checked. This is madness. This is insanity. What do you mean, you don’t want to be fact-checked?”
Harris would jab Trump for his false claims about the 2020 presidential election, calling him a “sore loser” and taking him to task for his “dictator on day one” comments. “Understand what dictators do,” said Harris. “They jail journalists, they put people who are protesting in the street in jail.” She also commented on the bombshell report of Trump sending Russian President Vladimir Putin COVID tests at the height of the pandemic when he was in office. “People in America were struggling to get tests and this guy is sending them to Russia, to a murderous dictator for his personal use?” she said. Stern declared that he’d vote for her in November.
In her appearance on Late Night With Stephen Colbert, Harris opened up more, even sharing a beer – Miller High Life – with the host who expressed that he got advance permission to do so. Harris spoke about her Republican endorsements from Liz and Dick Cheney, praising them for putting “country over party.” Colbert asked her about her thoughts during her debate with Trump last month. “It’s family TV, right? It starts with a W, there’s a letter between it, then the last letter’s F,” she said, laughing and adding later on in the interview, “This is what happens when I drink beer.”
The appearances by the vice president were strategic in targeting key journalists supportive of her campaign, as many observers complained that she was ignoring traditional media outlets. Stern’s base, predominately composed of white males, is a key demographic for the Democratic party, evidenced by the “White Dudes For Harris” collective. Colbert has been a strong supporter of both Harris and President Joe Biden in the past, appearing as a host for fundraisers.
According to 50 Cent, marriage is good for thee, but not for he. The hip-hop mogul sat down with Stephen Colbert on The Late Show on Wednesday night (Sept. 4) to chop it up about his happily unwedded lifestyle, as well as doubling down on a vow of celibacy he claimed has allowed him to stay super-focused.
“Listen, when you calm down you can focus,” 50 said after Colbert read a recent magazine headline touting the near-billionaire’s sex-free lifestyle. “I’ve been good to me.” Colbert wondered what the money was for then if not to share with the love of his life, with 50 (born Curtin Jackson) explaining, “[Money is] when things start getting complicated, things start getting confusing, ‘cause people come in for different reasons.”
When Colbert asked the father of two if he’d ever been married, 50 snapped back with, “I’m safe. I’m not a happy hostage. I’m here. I’m free. I made some mistakes, just not that one.” Colbert, who often touts his endless love for his wife of 31 years, Evie, pivoted to asking what the life of an unmarried man is like, after explaining that his typically begins with the Wordle.
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50 said he goes to the gym or works out at home, while trying not to brag as he casually mentioned that he typically grabs 105-pound dumbbells. Colbert sweetly suggested that Curtis’ solitary lifestyle sounds, well, lonely. “I want you to have someone you can love in your life, Curtis,” Colbert said.
“I want someone I can love in my life too, just not right now, I’m fine,” 50 assured him.
Colbert also put up an adorable pic of 50 Cent chilling with his 12-year-old son, Sire Jackson, on the little man’s birthday this weekend. “What’s it like do you think to have 50 Cent as a dad?” Colbert wondered. “Great,” the rapper said with a wide smile, describing a special dinner at a steakhouse he had for his son that included a pop-in from Dr. Dre, which in typical tween fashion did not impress Sire as much as 50 thought it might.
The interview also featured 50 running down what the audience was like in Almaty, Kazakhstan when he performed there for the first time on his Final Lap tour last year. “They don’t know I’m not Michael Jackson… it was so cool. It was unbelievable,” 50 said, recalling how fans chased his car as if he was actually the late King of Pop.
Multi-hyphenate 50 was ostensibly in the house to promote his debut novel, The Accomplice, which the “In Da Club” MC said he essentially dictated to writer Aaron Philip Clark based on a rough outline he came up with. And, 50 being multimedia mogul 50, he said he’s already in talks with some TV networks about adopting the story about the first Black Texas Ranger on the hunt for master criminal Desmond Bell.
Watch 50 on The Late Show below.
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Nick Cave, the enigmatic frontman of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, opened up about his music, personal tragedies, and upcoming album during a revealing appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Aug. 13.
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Cave’s new album, Wild God, set for release on Aug. 30, marks a shift in his musical journey.
“It’s essentially a joyful, uplifting kind of record,” the Australian singer explained, adding, “This record is some years on from events that happened in my life that sort of required my music to be different in a way.” Cave was referring to the devastating losses he has endured – the death of his son Arthur in 2015, followed by the passing of his son Jethro in 2022.
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Reflecting on the power of music, the acclaimed songwriter described it as “one of the last legitimate opportunities we have for a transcendent experience.”
However, the music legend shared deep concerns about the impact of AI on creativity: “I think there’s forces out there that that are expressly designed to take the creative act away from us, especially with AI as it’s coming out at the moment, to purely industrialize it, to create music as simply a product and to take away the actual creative experience.” The frontman of The Bad Seeds emphasized, “That worries me a lot.”
The multi-award-winning artist revealed a profound experience of recording with Johnny Cash, his musical hero.
“When I got there quite early at the studio and when he arrived, he was not well at all,” Cave recalled. “He was a sort of terrifying apparition of a man.”
The influential musician vividly described the moment: “He sat down with me and he said, ‘Look, you know, I’ve had the flu, I’ve had laryngitis, I have no voice. I’ve never asked Jesus for anything, but I had to perform with you today. Last night I dropped down on my knees and I said, ‘Jesus, I got to sing with Nick. Give me back my voice.’”
Despite Cash’s frail health, Cave witnessed an extraordinary transformation: “He transformed from this sort of suffering individual into something really extraordinary, literally before my eyes.”
On grief and healing, the he reflected, “We must be able to turn ourselves the other way and look at the world and understand that we are part of the world.”
Cave added, “I saw the world not as a cruel place but as an extraordinarily systemically beautiful place to live in.” The Australian music legend offered a perspective on finding joy after profound loss: “There is joy and happiness in a way you never believed possible on the other side of grief. It’s a difficult, it’s a terrible truth about grief that ultimately you feel you can feel joy in a way that you never thought you could.”
The conversation also touched on the importance of small acts of kindness. The influential musician recounted a memorable interaction: “I went into a vegetarian takeaway restaurant… I gave her the money and she handed me back the change and just squeezed my hand as she gave me back the money. This I’ll never forget because it was so beautifully, quietly articulate.”
As for Wild God, the multi-award-winning artist described it as “a warm embrace,” suggesting that fans can expect a more uplifting experience when the album drops on Aug. 30.
Watch Nick Cave on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert below.
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Billie Eilish unwrapped the live debut of the soaring ballad “The Greatest” on The Late Show on Monday night (June 10), performing the Hit Me Hard and Soft album track accompanied by her brother/producer Finneas on acoustic guitar. The moodily lit performance opened with the singer shrouded in darkness sitting on a stool as Finneas […]
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André 3000’s last album, New Blue Sun, wasn’t exactly filled with rhymes and bars as it was with notes and sounds. While his day-ones were disappointed in his new choice of artistry, the man himself is more than happy with the new road he’s chosen to follow.
In a recent appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the OG ATLien explained to the late night host how his love of the flute came about and why he decided to take his newfound hobby to the next level and make an entire album with it. “I discovered the flute and I started playing it over and over again for years,” André 3000 told Colbert. “And I felt like it would be great to share it so it kinda came in a natural way.”
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After Colbert interjected that he loved the flute because he felt like it sounded like a human voice to him, André agreed saying, “Yes! That’s why I love it. It’s the closest thing to singing… Like, vibrato is basically a human kinda thing… And you’re actually hearing a human’s wind. So on other instruments you don’t hear it.”
Well, if Kenny G can make a living off of flute albums, why can’t André 3000? The man said he has a pretty steep flute collection so y’all can expect a lot more flute songs coming in the future regardless of how y’all feel.
After the interview 3 Stacks took to the stage to perform “That Night in Hawaii When I Turned into a Panther…” and showed everyone he’s just as talented with a flute in his hand as he is with the mic. And we ain’t mad at the homie one bit.
Check out the interview and performance below. Let us know if you’re rocking with this side of André 3000 or if he should go back to rapping in the comments section below.
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For the latest stop on her Pink Friday 2 promo run, Nicki Minaj returned to The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on Wednesday (Dec. 20) to chat about her new album and trade freestyle bars with the Emmy-winning host.
“I’ll do the beat, you just be entertained,” Minaj quipped as Colbert clumsily attempted to make a lunchroom beat on his desk. “That’s not the beat I taught you last time I was here!”
Five years ago, when she was promoting her Queen album, Minaj showed Colbert how to make a simple beat and freestyle to it. Evidently, the Late Show host has spent the past half-decade honing his skills, because his retorts to Minaj’s bars shocked even the “Super Freaky Girl” rapper herself.
In a flow and rhythm taken from Pink Friday 2 breakout hit “FTCU” — lovingly renamed “F–k the Colbert Up” — Nicki spits, “High heels on for Stevie/ If I marry Stevie, he ain’t ever gon’ leave me.” In response, Colbert raps, “High heels or not, Nicki / You better hope you never meet my wife, Evie!” The hilarious comeback shocked Minaj into a few moments of silence before she and the audience broke out into uncontrollable laughter.
On the Billboard Hot 100 (chart dated Dec. 23, 2023), “FTCU” was one of 14 Pink Friday 2 tracks to appear on the ranking — the most of any female rapper in history. Over on the Billboard 200, Pink Friday 2 became Minaj’s third No. 1 LP, making her the female rapper with the most chart-topping efforts. The new album is both the Queen of Rap’s long-awaited fifth studio album and the sequel to Pink Friday, her Billboard 200-topping 2010 debut album. The ever-expanding 24-track set sports collaborations with Drake, J. Cole, Lil Uzi Vert and more. Recent singles including “Red Ruby Da Sleeze,” “Last Time I Saw You” and the Hot 100-topping “Super Freaky Girl” also appear on the tracklist.
During her interview with Colbert, Minaj revealed that she’s “still working” on the album. “I put more songs that entire week,” she said in reference to late-stage additions such as the 50 Cent-assisted “Beep Beep.” “My entire label looked like they were about to have heart attacks!”
With the promise of more new music, it looks like Minaj is prepping for an extended stay in Gag City — the A.I. kingdom her fans created in anticipation of Pink Friday 2. According to Minaj, who presumably is the head of state in Gag City, everyone is entitled to “a free mansion, free car and free canned goods” in her kingdom.
The “Super Bass” rapper’s conversation with Colbert also touched on her 3-year-old son, affectionately nicknamed Papa Bear. Minaj spilled about being a first-time mom, watching her son grow right before her eyes and, in turn, growing as a person herself. “My life was so selfish before he came here,” she gushed to the comedian. “Since this little human came onto Planet Earth, I can’t do anything without thinking about him first. There’s this thing that happens every day when I see his face, which is more than anything money could buy in the world. So, I’m really happy I pushed him out!”
Check out Nicki Minaj and Stephen Colbert’s hilarious rap battle above, and more clips from her interview below:
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If it’s not already cold enough for you out there, Olivia Rodrigo served up some serious pop chills on Monday night (Dec. 11) during a performance of her soundtrack song for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, “Can’t Catch Me Now.” Fresh off a cake-smashing Saturday Night Live performance and a trip […]
A lot of things happened on Monday (Nov. 20) when President Biden participated in one of the weirdest annual White House fall traditions: the National Thanksgiving Turkey pardoning ceremony. As you’ve probably already read, Biden — who was also celebrating his 81st birthday that day — pardoned the cluckers named “Liberty” and “Bell” and then […]
