Former “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush delivered the highest ratings for Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” since an August interview with former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci.
Bush was fired from NBC in 2016 after being heard laughing on the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape featuring Donald Trump.
He joined the CBS late-night program for an interview after the tape came back into the news following a report in The New York Times that said Trump allegedly told a senator that the tape was fake — despite apologizing for its contents after it was released last year.
Overall, Colbert averaged 3.6 million viewers for the Bush interview, according to Nielsen research. That ties the best-ever Monday night broadcast for the program, the Scaramucci visit on Aug. 21.
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Bush, the nephew of former president George H.W. Bush, said that he hadn’t educated himself on sexual harassment accusations against Trump when they emerged shortly after the “Access Hollywood” tape was released because he had recently been terminated from NBC, but has recently done so.
“So when he said this it infuriated me on a personal front, but then I ended up Googling and I found an article with all these women’s accounts,” Bush, 46, told Colbert.
“I said, 20 women don’t get together and say, ‘You know what would be really fun, let’s take down a powerful guy together.’ No, they don’t,” Bush said.
“I said, ‘OK, you’re reopening wounds on them too. Enough’s enough, stop playing around with people’s lives.’ ”
The “Access Hollywood” tape was leaked to The Washington Post just two days before a second presidential debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton.
Colbert continues to win the late-night ratings race for CBS, with ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel making strong gains among younger viewers and the formerly dominant Jimmy Fallon of NBC losing viewers.