Name: Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon Bombed In Front of Princess Diana | Letterman
Uploaded: 2023-11-27T23:00:13.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon Bombed In Front of Princess Diana | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-11-27. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon Bombed In Front of Princess Diana | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-11-27. Transcript available.

- My next guest is the lead singer
for a very popular group called Duran Duran.
He is also one of the classiest names
in all of show business.
Please welcome Simon Le Bon.
- Hi, Simon Le Bon, nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you, thank you for meeting me.
Have a seat.
- Nice to meet you, nice to see you.
- I have words, oh my God, yes a little bait.
Ooh, heavens.
Thank you very much, how you doing?
- Not bad, how are you?
- Well, I've been better all things considered,
but nice to see you.
And I was, we were talking about you this afternoon.
What's the matter?
- Nothing.
- You're the favorite musical group of Princess Diana?
- That's been quoted, I don't know if it's true.
Not after the show that she saw us play actually.
- Where did she see you guys?
- Well, she played a show in London for the Prince's Trust
and somebody knocked the bass guitar out of tune
and it was tuned wrongly and we played an abominable version
of a song of ours called Save a Prayer, Take the Out of Key.
- And did she comment upon that at all?
- No, she just left.
- Just left?
Have you ever met the woman?
- Yeah, we've met a couple of times.
She's sort of, they're a really good couple actually.
I mean, they do a very good job.
I mean, if you can imagine having to meet hundreds
and thousands of people every year
and trying to find something to talk about
in like 30 seconds.
- Yeah.
- What they do is they do their homework on you
and find out what to talk about.
- What do they talk to you about?
- More sex and drugs, that sort of thing.
- But seriously, what did they talk about?
- Well, I can't repeat it actually.
It's sort of under the Official Secrets Act.
- Really?
- Come on.
Next question please.
- But now, give me a hint as to what she's talked about.
- Oh, we talked about music and, you know,
Charlie and her and how tall she was and things like that.
- Uh-huh.
Yeah, well I can see why you'd want that secret.
But a nice couple and seem pretty friendly.
- Yeah, I think they'll get on with each other quite well.
- All right, well that's nice.
And you're also sailing?
You're leaving for a race halfway around the world?
- Yeah, I'm gonna be doing the second two,
the last two legs of the Whipped Bread Round the World race,
which is a race around the world.
- What kind of craft are we talking about?
- Yeah, it's a 77-foot racing maxi.
- Yeah, this is a sailboat.
- That's right, yeah.
We're there to win the race.
And good luck, thank you very much.
- And what do you do on the boat?
- Me, I'll be doing...
He's really slow tonight, isn't he?
I'm gonna be doing the washing up and things like that,
you know?
- Really, have you been sailing long?
- I've been washing up for a lot longer.
- Yeah.
But you're a member of the crew?
- Yeah, I think what we'll do is rotation, really.
Everybody does a little bit of this, a little bit of that.
You can't pull on the same piece of rope for a month on end.
It gets really boring.
- And how long will you actually be at sea?
- 35 days.
- Oh, heavens.
- 33 if we're going really fast.
- Yeah.
Will this be the longest time you've been out, as they say?
- Absolutely, yeah.
- Now, do you do a lot of this?
- I've been sailing on and off since I was about nine years old,
actually.
A local vicar took me to the Norfolk Broads on a holiday,
and I got into boats there and I've been doing it ever since.
But this is really the big one.
I mean, this is the biggest race you can get in sailing.
It's huge.
- Yeah.
- It's the biggest racing track in the world, you know?
- What did you say, Norfolk Broads?
- Norfolk Broads.
- What does that mean, Norfolk Broads?
- It's bits of water.
- Broads being Broads, as in like a straight or something?
- Mm, they're just called the Broads,
like you call it the Straits of Magellan, yeah.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Yeah, yeah.
Let me ask you about a nickname
that the people in the group have for you.
Does this ring a bell, Lardo?
- I've heard it.
I've read, actually, in Rolling Stone magazine
that was quoted.
Yeah, it's an absolute load of old tosh.
It's English for crap.
- Oh.
- Nonsense.
- Nonsense.
- Absolutely.
- Nobody called you that.
- No, that was absolutely...
- A complete fabrication.
- Fabrication, yeah.
- Uh...
- I did ask the group about it, actually.
I said, "Come on, guys, you've got to do me a favor.
"Have you been calling me this behind my back?"
They said, "No."
- Yeah.
- I did believe them, actually.
- Lardo.
- Um...
- Doesn't ring a bell.
- It doesn't, I don't think it's, uh...
Suits me.
- Now, what about the group breaking up,
as long as we're talking about rumours?
Any truth to that?
- Well, I mean, obviously not.
I mean, it's my bread and butter.
I think if we were gonna break up,
we would have definitely made a statement about it.
You know, we would have said...
- Some sort of unofficial, yeah, this is the end.
- Yeah, all this speculation, I mean, it's, uh...
I find it very boring, very tedious, actually.
- Yeah, so, but you will one day get back together.
Everybody seems to now be doing other things,
but you'll eventually come back.
- Yeah, I mean, they've been doing the Power Station,
they're doing very well with it.
And then Nick and myself and Roger, we're doing, um...
We've got a project, uh, we've got an album called
"So Read The Rose", which is gonna be released in September.
I've gotta get this up really quickly.
Um, the band's called Arcadia.
Please buy a copy. You.
- Now, what was, uh, uh, tell me a little bit about Live Aid.
I know that you probably could talk all day about that,
but what was that experience like for you?
- Well, it was, um...
I was very proud to be involved in it.
That was the first thing I felt.
And then suddenly I realised what we were actually doing.
Um, not just raising money for people who are starving.
I mean, that was obviously the prime objective,
was to actually save people's lives.
But actually making young people aware of their responsibility
and their potency in world affairs today.
And actually making the, you know, the people who are in power
aware of the potency and strength of feeling.
And actually what can be physically done for people who are dying
by people who believe in what they're doing.
And it was, it was good to be part of that.
- Yeah, very nice experience. Overwhelming.
- All right, um... - Actually, can I...
Can I, uh, can I carry on?
Um, I would, do you want to carry on with that?
Because, um...
Because it's, it's one, it's one thing,
it's one thing to sort of put your hand in your pocket
and give a dollar off to Live Aid when all the pop groups are on TV
and there's all that publicity.
But it is a situation which is still going on.
There are still people starving.
And that money doesn't last for very long at all.
And if any real solution is to be made to that problem,
people really do have to keep on being very aware of the problem
and actually giving money all the time.
It's a, it's a pragmatic solution to a situation.
It's not charity. It's a fact.
You don't let these people starve because they're the same as you are.
Yeah. But it's certainly a good way to begin getting the message out.
Nice to meet you.
Thank you very much.
Good luck in the race.
Thank you very much, Simon.
We'll be right back, folks, with Rita Redner.
We'll be right back, folks, with Rita Redner.