The third season of Netflix’s My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman doesn’t premiere until this Wednesday, the 21st, but details from the Kim Kardashian episode have been released online. You’ll have to wait for the smoking weed stuff.
In the conversation, which was filmed before the pandemic (otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten this photo), Letterman sort-of apologized to Kardashian for mocking her during his Late Show days (“Here we are and we’re not laughing now”) and asked for her thoughts on the O.J. Simpson trial (it “tore our family apart,” but she refused to share her feelings on the verdict out of respect for his children). Her sex tape with then-boyfriend Ray J was also brought up, with Kardashian telling Letterman that her family standing by her side “meant everything to me. When we had our first big, public scandal, that is how we always got through things, is with each other. I have my family, that’s all that matters.”
The episode later turned to her ties with the Trump administration.
There’s the Kanye of it all, of course, but Kim has also worked with the White House on criminal justice reform issues. “Hopefully, for the next multiple administrations, I’ll be working with the White House, helping them with clemencies,” Kardashian explained, causing Letterman to ask, “But do you feel that what is being done on behalf of sentencing reform now via this current administration in any way allows the balance of democracy back in a corridor of viability?” If you have no idea what the hell that means, you’re not the only one: “Well, I have no idea what you just said,” Kardashian replied with a laugh, so Letterman rephrased his general point. “I’m grateful for what you’re doing, but it doesn’t make me feel any better about the current administration,” he said.
Kardashian still wouldn’t say anything bad about Trump, or even divulge who she’s voting her — all she would offer is that she’s been told, “Don’t you dare step foot in that White House or your reputation is done.” Letterman praised her “overwhelming” good work, including helping get Alice Johnson released from prison, but “it’s a positive force that diminishes what I consider to be unacceptable behavior by the president.”
Letterman is a famously great interviewer, but even he couldn’t Kim to crack.