Australian journalist and host of The Living Room, Amanda Keller, has revealed the one celebrity interview she regrets doing.
The 56-year-old said that she ‘still has nightmares’ about an awkward interview with Barry Manilow in Las Vegas in her mid-40s, in which she made an inappropriate joke about herpes.
She says the musician looked at her with what she described as a “face of disgust”.
“I had an out of body experience. It was terrible. I’ve got my head in my hands as I tell you this story,” she said in an interview with news.com.au.
The journalist had taken a trip to Las Vegas with a friend of 30 years and fellow fan of Manilow, and said her lifetime love of the singer made the experience especially horrifying.
“We were talking about fans going out of their way for him and I said, ‘what’s the weirdest thing a fan has given you?’ But then I said, ‘apart from herpes’. My friend looked at me like I’d gone insane,” she continued.
When asked about the best interviews she has ever done, the journalist said that Ashton Kutcher and Will Smith at the beginning of their careers were standouts.
“They were both just brilliant. And they came out recently for movies and I just was disappointed because they’d been so great the time before. They just weren’t giving much,” she said.
“At the ripe age of 56 it feels dismissive because you think, ‘I’m not here as an elderly fan. I’m not here on pension day to get a biscuit off you. I’m here to do my job and if you could look me in the eye and answer a question, how hard can that be?’” she said.
