David Letterman insists he has 'greater humanity' since leaving showbiz for his home state of Indiana
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David Letterman is opening up his life after showbiz, insisting he has 'greater humanity' since moving back to his home state of Indiana.
The 77-year-old comedian left his beloved late night talk show Late Show in 2015 after 22 years on the air.
He left Indianapolis, Indiana in his 20s to chase his dream of being a stand-up comedian, a journey they took him to New York City, Los Angeles and beyond.
Letterman has since returned home to Indiana, opening up to GQ about his life after showbiz, which has changed quite a bit.
'In show business, I find that I have pretended to be someone I’m truly not,' he said in the wide-ranging interview.
David Letterman is opening up his life after showbiz, insisting he has 'greater humanity' since moving back to his home state of Indiana
The 77-year-old comedian left his beloved late night talk show Late Night in 2015 after 22 years on the air
'In my life here in Indiana and at my home with my family, I am probably the person I actually am. And I regret that they don’t kind of cross at any point,' he added.
When asked if he thought being in showbiz made him a 'worse person,' Letterman immediately responded, 'Yes. You're exactly right.'
'And I don’t know, maybe it’s only because I went through show business. I got that out of my system eventually that I can concentrate on being a better person and probably couldn’t have reached this point if I had not gone through the exercise of trying to succeed at show business,' he added.
'I just feel like personally, I have greater humanity than I did when I was in show business,' Letterman continued.
He added, 'It was all single-minded and great pressure, real unimagined, and I felt like it’s all on me, and it’s all on me, and that it was all nonsense.'
'All I cared about was television, one hour of television that I was responsible for, for 30 years. That’s all I cared about,' he admitted.
'Everything fell apart, went away. I didn’t even know if it was falling apart or not. And now I have the energy and the broader focus to recognize humanity has other fulfilling pursuits,' he said.
He added that he would regularly get so angry that he would rip phones out of the wall, which lead to a unique deal with Westinghouse.
'In my life here in Indiana and at my home with my family, I am probably the person I actually am. And I regret that they don’t kind of cross at any point,' he added
When asked if he thought being in showbiz made him a 'worse person,' Letterman immediately responded, 'Yes. You're exactly right.'
'And I don’t know, maybe it’s only because I went through show business. I got that out of my system eventually that I can concentrate on being a better person and probably couldn’t have reached this point if I had not gone through the exercise of trying to succeed at show business,' he added
While he hasn't been on broadcast television for nearly a decade, he still does host Netflix's My Next Guest Needs No Introduction
'My doctor, the guy who saved my life, begged me to go on an SSRI, because I used to get so upset and we had an office, an adjunct office, an office in the office, I'm sorry, a closet in the office full of telephones because if things went wrong, I would pick up my telephone, yank it out of the wall, and heave it across the room,' he said.
'And so we had a deal with Westinghouse, the people who used to make the phones and they'd have a regular delivery stop resupplying us with phones. So that was a cue - that maybe I needed help,' he said.
While he hasn't been on broadcast television for nearly a decade, he still does host Netflix's My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.
'I’m surprised that I’m still doing it at my age. On the other hand, I still get a kick out of what we’re doing. So what does that mean? I don’t know,' he mused.
Still, he added that he doesn't believe in retiring, stating, 'Retirement is a myth. Retirement is nonsense. You won't retire. The human mechanism will not allow you to retire.'
'As long as you are healthy, you still want to produce. And you will find ways to, once I stopped doing the show, it took me a couple of years to figure out that, oh, this is a completely different rhythm. And without the rhythm that you're accustomed to, largely unsatisfying. So you got to find something that's important to you,' he said.
