It’s gotta be something in the green room snacks at CNN.
By walking off Piers Morgan’s show Wednesday night, former U.S. senatorial candidate Christine “I’m Not a Witch” O’Donnell reminded us why we think she’s such a flake. And how embarrassing that her role model was a has-been beauty queen who did likewise during a TV appearance for the same purpose, over the same exact subject, in the same exact CNN timeslot.
Back in 2009, a disgraced beauty pageant contestant hawking a quickie autobiography called Larry King “inappropriate” for asking a few softball questions about gay marriage.
She then pouted a little, looked off-camera a lot, unclipped her microphone and sat in awkward live-TV silence. But common sense prevailed and she stuck around.
Also read: Christine O'Donnell on Piers Morgan: 'I Was Not There to Talk About Sex'
Flash forward to O’Donnell, currently in the midst of her own Redemption/Reinvention Tour. She too is pitching a book about how put-upon she was during her circus of a Senate run. After stops on Good Morning America, Fox News and Sirius, she wound up chatting with Morgan, King’s 9PM replacement.
Morgan’s no stranger to puffball questions either (just ask Charlie Sheen) and was quite gentlemanly to O’Donnell, teeing up easy pitches for her on topics in the book and giving her ample time to ramble on and make frequent plugs.
And then, suddenly and strangely, she wouldn’t.
What happened next – that O’Donnell shut down the interview – has three possible explanations. And then what was done (or not) by the episode’s three main players has larger ramifications for each of them.
At its most basic, O’Donnell refused to answer Morgan’s repeated attempts to get her opinion on gay marriage and she ended the segment. While O’Donnell’s legacy is littered with illogical media relations decisions, this one’s especially perplexing.
For starters, she argued on-camera with Morgan that her appearance on his show was meant to focus on the policy issues covered in her book -- yet as he pointed out, that subject was indeed examined in its chapters.
She complained that she didn’t want to be pressured into talking about sexuality -- yet this is a woman who’s built her entire career in political advocacy -- as a candidate and particularly as a TV personality wannabe -- zeroed in on heavy-duty sexual issues such as masturbation, including her own.
But don’t you also wonder why O’Donnell’s publicist didn’t anticipate the gay marriage question and rehearse her with some easy response to just make the subject go away if raised?
What seems to be the most popular explanation about why she shut down the CNN interview was its PR value. In her final moments of conversation with Morgan, O’Donnell made reference to being late for a women’s event that evening (a coven, perhaps?).
So, a dramatic TV walk-off that got her to the event on time while also getting her hundreds of publicity hits makes sense.
