OCTOBER 27, 2015
(from David Letterman interview, page 517)
Howard: You inspired me. I went on Letterman and I danced on his desk in full drag and showed him my boobs.
Drew: [laughs]
Howard: When you did that, was that calculated?
Drew: No.
Howard: It wasn’t.
Drew: So spontaneous. I mean, you can see me up there as if I am on a train that I don’t know where it’s going.
Howard: Is it like slow motion?
Drew: Yep. Completely out of body.
Howard: It was Dave’s birthday, and you said, “Hey Dave, for your birthday”—which is a great moment of inspiration on talk shows. ’Cause it’s hard to really make those things fly. And most people come on and say, “Hey, let me just talk about my project and get the hell out.”
Drew: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Howard: So you were having fun. You jump up on the desk, and you pick up your top, and you give Dave a topless dance.
Robin: It was a flash.
Drew: It was a quick flash. “The Blue Angel” chapter [in my book] is titled that after a place in the lower West Village where I did this funny little strip dance with my friend. And [Letterman’s] producers got ahold of the information. This is before the Internet. How people found out anything at that point was a mystery. And he was like, “Can we talk about that on the show?” And I was like, “Sure, great.” And so it just started . . . I don’t know. It was just a runaway train.
Howard: It evolved. Now, when you’re doing it, do you know it’s going to become—it’s a classic Letterman thing. They show it if there’s ever a compilation video. It became a defining thing.
Drew: No, I had no idea. ’Cause I didn’t even know what I was doing in the moment.
Howard: So did you get off and go, “Oh my god, I just killed it.”
Drew: No, I got off and I was like, “Holy shit. What did I just do?” And when I watched it that night with friends, as I talk about in that chapter, I was like, “Okay. That was crazy. Fun. I think the tone came off okay. Thank God David Letterman didn’t make me look bad in front of people.” He could’ve. He could’ve sent me into a real bad place with disapproval in that moment. And instead he was charming and cute and let everybody know this was okay. And it was okay. And we got away with it. And that night I said to myself, “Okay, so next chapter you need to go and become a young lady. You’re still a teenager, so this is okay. But you’re about to be twenty and . . .” You know, I was right in that age gap where I was like, “I think that was the cap to your teens. What do you want your twenties to be?” And I immediately went out, and I know it’s when I found [the film] Ever After. I found the path that I wanted to be on.
Howard: You mean that led to the path. Because you said, “That’s the closing of a wild chapter.”
Drew: Yeah. I was like, “I know what kind of kid and teenager I’ve been. What kind of woman am I going to become?” And I found this script that was a spin on the Cinderella tale, and it was about rescuing yourself. Sure, you want love at the end of the day. Get the prince, of course. But Jeanne Moreau in the beginning of the movie is like, “You Grimm Brothers got it wrong. This woman actually was smart and capable.” It just blew my mind. ’Cause we’re raised on fairy tales, and we’re told to wait to be rescued. And it’s like, “No. Rescue yourself.”
Howard: So you were not upset about the Letterman thing. You saw it as a closing of a chapter.
Drew: It was the closing of a chapter.
Howard: Like a book.
Drew: The symphony ended.