A couple of months ago, while most of us were distracted by the death of Dolly Parton, Rolling Stone published a lengthy article about another show-business death — except this woman wasn’t a star. She was the ex-girlfriend of a star, but one of those smaller stars you’ve probably never heard of. Most grown-ups never watched The Late Late Show on CBS, which went through multiple iterations with different hosts (Tom Snyder, Craig Kilborn, Craig Ferguson) before James Corden became host in 2015.
During its final years, before CBS finally killed it in 2023, the band on The Late Late Show was led by Reggie Watts. Although not exactly a household name, Watts was popular in L.A. and also performed as a comedian at various festivals. His career effectively ended, however, when the Rolling Stone article came out:
How does one write tastefully of a wasted life? On the one hand, I don’t want to get into the politics of Katherine McCollough’s death, but on the other hand, it would seem presumptuous to delve into the morality of how a woman got involved with a celebrity drug addict, lost her mind and committed suicide at age 36. All of her friends are liberals, and probably despise me on principle, without me ever writing a word about McCollough, so there’s nothing to be gained by being less than honest.
She liked the bad boys. Because they all like the bad boys. . . .
You can read the rest of my latest Substack article.