About that time David Letterman kicked 'Spring Breakers' director Harmony Korine off his show

Posted by · 11:17 am · March 26th, 2013

With “Spring Breakers” in wide release this week, I imagine more of you have found a chance to see it. If so, be sure to let us know what you thought.

Meanwhile, James Franco seems like the hardest working man in show business these days, hitting the publicity circuit for both this film and “Oz the Great and Powerful.” One of those stops came last night on David Letterman, during which Franco recalled the “legend” of Harmony Korine getting kicked off the show once upon a time.

“The legend is that he pushed Meryl Streep backstage,” Franco said, coaxing Letterman to recall the altercation, which he did.

“The story was, and it’s absolutely true, I went upstairs to greet Meryl Streep and she was not in there,” Letterman said. “I looked around and I found your friend Harmony going through her purse. True story. And so I said, ‘Okay, that’s it. Put her things back in her bag and get out of here.”

Franco made sure it was known that this was a period of time when Korine, who had been on the show previously to promote the films “Kids” and “Gummo,” was “out of it.” I think we can surmise what that might mean. He vouches for him now, of course, calling him a great artist and great person to work with. But hey, we’ve all had our going-through-Meryl-Streep’s-purse bouts along the way, right? No judging here!

Check out the clip from last night’s show below, with Korine’s appearances on Letterman through the late 90s after that. And if you haven’t yet, make it out to “Spring Breakers.” So far, it’s easily one of 2013’s best films.

Here is Korine’s appearance on the show  “Kids” in 1995, voice cracking throughout:

Here he is two years later to promote “Gummo”:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uZgJapYmEI&hl=en_US&version=3]

And just one year later to promote his book “A Crackup at the Race Riots,” looking “out of it” to be sure:




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