The NewsBusters staff was passing around an old YouTube video from Samantha Bee that she taped with Charlie Rose in his Bloomberg studios last year. It was titled "What Are You Hiding, Charlie Rose?" She asked to turn up the lights in the typically black backdrop, and was frightened to discover a crowd of "Charlie Rose clones." One clone even paws her on the shoulder: "Hi, I'm Charlie Rose." The original Rose then says "He likes you!" In the Washington Post story that revealed the accusations, Rose's female employees apparently worried about being touched by the "crusty paw."
"That skit takes on a whole different tone after yesterday's allegations," said one colleague. "At least all the Charlie Rose clones were clothed," said another. We might wonder if the "whisper network" of warnings about "Charlie being Charlie" had made its way back to Bee and her feminist collective.
I also dug up Bee's first PBS interview on Charlie Rose on May 31, 2016 (taped on the same visit, apparently) that also now echoes differently, considering the allegations that Rose routinely showed up naked in front of women.
SAMANTHA BEE: Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.
CHARLIE ROSE: The title first, Full Frontal.
BEE: Yes.
ROSE: I love the idea.
BEE: Thank you. Well, we didn't -- you know, when we were coming up with -- when we were developing the show, we definitely wanted the show to feel audacious. We wanted it to have that spirit. And actually, one of my best friends, Allana Harkin, who I did comedy with for a long time and is now a producer of the show, came up with the title. She just floated it to me via text, and as soon as she did, I knew that was the name of the show.
ROSE: The two words, full frontal.
BEE: Full Frontal, it is.
ROSE: It's about attitude.
BEE: It's about an attitude. It's about being open and being audacious. Having a point of view that's obvious, being -- I guess being naked in a way, just figuratively.
Apparently, Rose consenting to being mocked as secretly creepy was just another way to offset the "whisper network."
