ASPEN, CO - AUGUST 02: Charlie Sheen arrives at the Pitkin County Courthhose on August 2, 2010 in Aspen, Colorado.
Riccardo S. Savi/Getty ImagesThe day after he interviewed Charlie Sheen on his show, Piers Morgan dropped by Conan O’Brien‘s and talked about the actor arriving minutes before they were to go live.
O’Brien asked Morgan how the interview came about in the first place. “Your booking seemed a little magical,” O’Brien said.
“We couldn’t get near him and one of my bookers managed to get a couple of numbers. I rang one of the numbers and one of his daughters picked the phone up, and just said, ‘Dad, there’s this guy called Piers from CNN, wants to talk to you,’ ” Morgan said Tuesday night on TBS’ Conan.
“Charlie came on the phone, had half an hour conversation with him. And I had interviewed him back in the early ’90s and he remembered the interview and we were talking about it,” he said. “I said, ‘Look Charlie, here’s the thing. I’m a big fan of yours, love your show and don’t like what’s happened … and I said, ‘The interviews you’re giving seem to be a little bit erratic, you’re getting too fired up. And it sounds like you’re crazy where I don’t think you are, I think you’re a smart guy going through a pretty tough period and I want to give you an hour to walk on my set tonight, live, and just explain it in a more considered way.’ And he liked it.”
But booking Sheen wasn’t the most nerve-wracking part, it was the actor actually showing up. (Morgan tweeted Monday night that the actor showed up to set with minutes to spare.)
“Let me explain the squeaky bum moment. You’ll like this,” Morgan said to O’Brien. “He said he’d get there at 4:30 and obviously we do an hour live on CNN and I’m waiting. 4:45, 5. By now, my bum is beginning to squeak. 5:15, 5:30.”
O’Brien asked: “Why is your bum squeaking again?”
“It’s that moment when you think you may go live and you don’t have a guest,” Morgan replied, joking, “You must have had that. It’s the worst thing .. It got to 5:55. We’re now five minutes away from going on-air and there’s no sign of Charlie. We can’t get through to him on the phones. .. And then this huge Maybach car sweeps in dramatically .. like a rockstar moment. His entourage piles out first and out comes Charlie, cigarette in hand, and said, ‘OK baby, it’s time to rock and roll.’ And just walked in, sat down and off we went.”
“I didn’t get the sense that this is a guy who about to die,” he said, adding later that “I believe fundamentally in a man’s right to party if he wants to.” The audience applauded.
“At the end of the show, he walked over and said, ‘So, what are you doing now?’ And I was like, this is that moment isn’t it? Do I go partying with Charlie Sheen?,” Morgan said with a laugh. “Did you?,” O’Brien asked. “I went back to my hotel room and watched myself on television. It was a much better way of doing it,” Morgan answered.
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