“Has anyone in conversation ever just fainted talking to you?,” David Letterman asked Jonathan Van Ness as the latter wrestled the former late-night host’s mustache into a JVN–approved curl. “And I’m just gonna ask you to stop saying ‘fingies.’” In their efforts to overwhelm your YouTube–watching schedule with the same quantity of content as your TV and movie queue, Netflix dispatched the My Next Guest Needs No Introduction host and the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy star this week to groom each other like two mostly bald monkeys in a barbershop interview.
Of course, Letterman’s beard isn’t the only thing about him that’s prickly, which made for a thrillingly awkward moment during their conversation about (of all things) self-care. After Letterman explains why he’s “snobby” about which forms of meditation pass muster (because some guy came to his office and taught him Transcendental Meditation?), the Queer Eye star replies, “Well, one of the tenets of mindfulness and meditation is ruthless judgment of other people, so I would love to take from your teacher. He sounds great!”
But at least the pair has one thing they can agree on: LGBTQ rights, the progress of which Letterman says he can see in the education, both academic and social, received by his 15-year-old son, Harry. “Nothing right ever happens without a fight,” he concludes. Enough to let the whole “fingies” debacle slide.
