Awkward Celebrity Interviews: Dakota Johnson Blake Lively and More

Dakota Johnson and Blake Lively are among the many stars who have been involved in TV interviews going off the rails.

In some cases, there’s what appears to be a disconnect or personality conflict between the star and their interviewer, though there are just as many instances of celebrities taking a hard left. Who will ever forget Madonna swearing a record-breaking 14 times during a 1994 interview with David Letterman, or Samuel L. Jackson roasting a local TV news reporter for confusing him with Laurence Fishburne?

There are very few things in life more awkward than a TV interview gone wrong. Keep scrolling for a look back at some of the most cringe-inducing TV interviews in history, featuring the likes of Meg Ryan, Tom Selleck and Joaquin Phoenix, among others:

Blake Lively

A tense exchange between Lively and journalist Kjersti Flaa on the press tour for Woody Allen’s 2016 movie Café Society had long-lasting implications for both the star and her questioner. Lively’s costar Parker Posey ended up as a bewildered bystander when Flaa made the mistake of starting the interview by referencing Lively’s pregnancy.

“First of all, congrats on your little bump,” Flaa said, before Lively interjected, “Congrats on your little bump.”

Flaa attempted to change the topic by asking about the clothes Lively and Posey wore for the period drama, though this earned her no favors either.

“Everyone wants to talk about the clothes but I wonder if they’d ask the men about the clothes?” Lively interjected.

Lively proceeded to have an extended conversation with Posey while Flaa sat silent. The journalist uploaded the clip to YouTube under the title, “The Blake Lively interview that made me want to quit my job.”

While Flaa reposted the interview amidst Lively’s legal battle with It Ends With Us costar Justin Baldoni in 2024, she denied there was any collaboration with Baldoni’s camp.

“I just felt like, ‘You know what? It’s not OK to behave like that and I think it needs to be called out.’ And so that’s the reason why I did that now, so much later,” Flaa clarified.

Dakota Johnson

The Fifty Shades of Grey actress inadvertently started a meme when she bluntly corrected Ellen DeGeneres during a 2019 interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. DeGeneres had teased Johnson about their friendship, before complaining that she wasn’t invited to her guest’s then-recent 30th birthday party.

“Actually, no, that’s not the truth, Ellen. You were invited,” Johnson replied. “Last time I was on the show, last year, you gave me a bunch s*** about not inviting you but I didn’t even know you wanted to be invited. I didn’t even know you liked me.”

DeGeneres defended her friendly demeanor towards Johnson when she’d appeared on the talk show, but her guest brought the discussion back around to the bigger issue.

“I did invite you and you didn’t come,” Johnson pointed out.

Seemingly embarrassed, DeGeneres responded by saying, “I was invited? Why didn’t I go? Oh yeah, I had that thing.”

Johnson made light of the tense TV discussion in a 2024 interview with L’Officiel when she admitted the viral clip and meme will “haunt” her forever.

Meg Ryan

It’s safe to say that the Sleepless in Seattle star and legendary British journalist Michael Parkinson didn’t hit it off during a 2003 interview. Ryan and Parkinson butted heads over his insinuation that a certain level of press intrusion was a trade-off for her career as an actress.

“You’ve got a problem,” Parkinson told her, with Ryan hesitating before admitting, “Yeah.”

“It seems like [the problem] is not one that’s going to be resolved on this show,” Parkinson sarcastically continued.

Another sparky moment between the pair came when Parkinson mentioned Ryan had studied to become a journalist before becoming a full-time actress.

“Now that you’re wary of journalists, does it give you an insight into what they’re after?” he asked. “You are wary of journalists. You’re wary of me. You’re wary of the interview. You don’t like being interviewed. You can see it in the way you sit and the way you are.”

He asked Ryan how they should proceed, with his guest quipping, “[I’d] probably just wrap it up.”

Ryan reflected on her clash with Parkinson in December 2024, telling The Times of London that her experience with “that guy” was the one time she lost her cool in an interview.

“I thought it was so bad,” she recalled. “In the States the talk shows have breaks every four minutes [for adverts], so I kept waiting for the break because I was gonna stand up and leave. But the break never came.”

For his part, Parkinson admitted in 2017 that he regretted how his conservation with Ryan turned out. The legendary journalist died at age 88 in August 2023.

Samuel L. Jackson

Entertainment reporter Sam Rubin, of Los Angeles TV station KTLA, made a huge mistake Jackson wouldn’t allow him to live down during a 2014 segment. Rubin referenced a Super Bowl commercial that Jackson had supposedly starred in, but the actor corrected him that it was Laurence Fishburne who’d actually appeared in a TV spot during the NFL game.

“You’re as crazy as the people on Twitter. I’m not Laurence Fishburne. We don’t all look alike,” Jackson scolded Rubin. “We may be Black and famous, but we all don’t look alike … You’re the entertainment reporter for this station and you don’t know the difference between me and Laurence Fishburne? There must be a very short line for your job!”

In a public apology, Rubin said he was actually referring to a trailer for Captain America: The Winter Soldier shown during the Super Bowl, in which Jackson did appear, but called the mishap a “very amateur mistake.”

Fishburne had earlier told Canadian show Strombo that he had a “running gag” with Jackson about the many times clueless people confused them for one another.

“Once upon a time, people used to confuse Al Pacino and Dustin Hoffman. It’s not a bad problem to have,” the Matrix star said.

Rubin died at age 64 in March 2024.

Madonna

The “Music” singer kept the CBS censors working overtime during a March 31, 1994, appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman when she used the work “f***” 14 times during the interview. Madonna was understandably annoyed by host Letterman’s introduction, in which he referred to her “[selling] over 80 million albums, [starring] in countless films and [sleeping] with some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry.”

Madonna responded by repeatedly swearing so large chunks of her interview would be incomprehensible for TV viewers due to network censoring. Letterman played along at first, but lost patience and begged Madonna to stop swearing during the excruciatingly-awkward 20-minute segment.

“You realize this is being broadcast, don’t you? You can’t be talking like that,” Letterman asked Madonna after she called him a “sick f***.”

Madonna refused to leave the set, forcing Letterman to cut to a commercial break so she could be coaxed off stage. Letterman publicly apologized to anyone offended by Madonna’s antics.

The “Material Girl” musician refused to back down, telling Spin Magazine in 1995 that there was a double-standard when it came to allowing violence on TV but not swearing.

“You can show a person getting blown up, and you can’t say f***? It’s such hypocrisy,” she noted. “The fact that everyone counted how many f***s I said — how small minded is that?”

She continued, “The other thing that was ridiculous was that David Letterman knew I was going to do it. I talked to the producers of the show. Everybody was like, this will be really funny if you say fuck a lot they’ll just keep bleeping you. Well, I came out and started doing it, and David freaked out. The way he introduced me was derogatory, so my whole thing was, okay, if that’s how you want to play it, you cannot beat me at this game.”

Madonna made up with Letterman in time to appear on The Late Show’s 1995 Valentine’s Day episode with candy and flowers as a peace offering.

Bee Gees

The disco gods probably wouldn’t be anyone’s first pick to angrily storm off stage during a TV interview but that’s what happened when Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb clashed with British comedian Clive Anderson on his BBC show Clive Anderson All Talk in October 1997.

The Bee Gees were seemingly unfamiliar with Anderson’s dry humor and thus took it personally when he took jabs at their music throughout the interview. During a discussion of the Gibb brothers’ early career, Anderson called them “tossers” and joked that he “slipped off” listening to the Bee Gees when they started making disco music.

After several minutes of Anderson taking potshots at his guests, Barry threatened that he would “storm off” of the show, which he did. Robin quickly followed his brother, leaving poor Maurice alone on stage with Anderson.

“Oh well, I guess I better join them,” Maurice said as he removed his microphone and walked off as well.

Decades later, Anderson admitted to Metro that he wasn’t intentionally trying to offend the Gibb brothers with his pointed jabs.

“I thought I was just jollying them along and having a bit of innocent fun but I was wrong – if you watch it back, every question I asked seemed to have been an annoyance or ill-judged,” he said. “I did a lot of interviews like that and some of them got laughs and others didn’t go so well.”

Tituss Burgess

Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen host Andy Cohen appeared unaware he’d broached a thorny subject during a 2019 interview with Burgess. Cohen asked Burgess what it was like to work with Eddie Murphy on the movie Dolemite Is My Name since Murphy had a number of homophobic comedy routines in the 1980s (for which he later apologized).

“He was very problematic for the gays at one point,” Cohen pointed out, but Burgess insisted, “He wasn’t problematic for Tituss. We had a wonderful time … Any troubles he may have had with gay people, I guess they’re gone because he loved me.”

Burgess muttered something under his breath when the camera cut away from him, but wasn’t willing to engage further once Cohen asked him to repeat himself.

“Keep going, girl. Do your show,” Burgess replied.

Cohen told Access Hollywood in 2019 that Burgess would be welcomed back to Watch What Happens Live despite their on-air blip.

“He can do whatever he wants. I just don’t want to offend him,” Cohen said.

Tom Selleck

Selleck had a frosty exchange with Rosie O’Donnell on the May 19, 1999, edition of The Rosie O’Donnell Show. At the time, Selleck was a spokesperson for the National Rifle Association (N.R.A.) while O’Donnell had campaigned for gun control legislation following the April 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado.

O’Donnell brought up their disagreement during the interview, though Selleck was reluctant to discuss the hot-button topic. Selleck accused O’Donnell of having “a very one-sided view” of the gun control debate, while the host countered that the N.R.A. held a “one-sided view” as well.

“This is a nice, one-sided conversation but you keep interrupting me,” Selleck complained at one point, with O’Donnell reminding him, “I let you talk for four minutes without saying one thing!”

By the end of the seven-minute discussion, O’Donnell admitted it “had not gone the way” she’d hoped but thanked Selleck for appearing in spite of their “differing views.”

“If you feel insulted by my questions, I apologize because it was not a personal attack,” O’Donnell told him.

“It’s your show and you can talk about it after I leave,” the actor sharply replied.

Debra Winger

The Oscar-nominated actress wasn’t impressed with Cohen during a 2018 appearance on Watch What Happens Live. Cohen slipped up during a question about Winger’s Terms of Endearment costar Shirley MacLaine, as he mistakenly thought Winger wrote about on-set tensions with MacLaine in her memoir.

“No,” Winger interrupted. “I didn’t write about her. She wrote about me! Let’s try to get something straight. I mean, come on, it’s rough!”

Cohen was noticeably rattled, first grimacing at the camera and then stumbling over his next question. Winger wasn’t interested in playing along when Cohen brought up some of her onscreen kisses.

“What were you doing 40 years ago?” Winger shot back. “You remember somebody you kissed 30 years ago … You don’t think [I] was sort of busy investigating a character, which puts you in another self-state? Right now, it’s pretty hard to be authentically a person.”

Amanda Peet was the other guest that night and confessed to Cohen on a subsequent WWHL episode that she knew the interview was “tanking.”

“She just hated me and my questions,” Cohen conceded. “It was a challenging situation.”

Joaquin Phoenix

Long before he won an Oscar for playing The Joker, Phoenix had some fun at Letterman’s expense with an elaborate hoax during a 2009 Late Show episode.

Phoenix went on the CBS show under the guise of promoting a supposed change in his career from acting to hip-hop, only to dodge most of Letterman’s questions and generally frustrate the host. The actor later revealed the whole interview was an elaborate prank — which Letterman was not privy to — for his 2010 faux-documentary I’m Still Here.

In 2010, Phoenix returned to The Late Show to promote the documentary and address the controversy he’d caused by fooling Letterman.

“You’ve interviewed many, many people and I assumed that you would know the difference between a character and a real person,” he told Letterman. “I apologize. I hope I didn’t offend you in any way.”

Robert Downey, Jr.

Downey clashed with Channel 4 News reporter Krishnan Guru-Murthy in 2015 over questions about his personal life. The Oscar winner expected their discussion to be a “promotional interview” for Avengers: Age of Ultron and, thus, appeared to be caught off guard by Guru-Murthy asking about his addiction struggles.

The breaking point came when Guru-Murthy asked if Robert’s relationship with his father, filmmaker Robert Downey, contributed to the “dark periods” where he took “drugs.”

“I’m sorry, what are we doing?” Robert Jr. interrupted, before telling the journalist, “Bye!”

Robert Jr. walked out of the interview, with Guru-Murthy later telling his viewers that Channel 4 did not participate in purely “promotional interviews.”

Tom Cruise

The Mission: Impossible actor has had a number of unusual TV interviews over the years — he infamously debated Scientology with Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today in 2005 and declared his love for second wife Katie Holmes by jumping on an interview couch that same year.

However, the closest Cruise ever came to completely losing his cool was when 60 Minutes Australia’s Peter Overton asked if ex-wife Nicole Kidman was “the love of [his] life” in a 2005 segment.

“What do you mean, Peter? … How do you answer that question?” a flustered Cruise replied.

Cruise told Overton that he’d “loved Nic very much,” but took offense when the journalist asked about their relationship now that they were divorced.

“Here’s the thing, Peter. You’re stepping over a line,” Cruise told his interviewer. “You’re stepping over a line and you know you are!”

Cruise ordered Overton to “put [his] manners back in,” leading the reporter to apologize for asking questions that were “out of line.”