Not every talk show experience is created equal. This week, The Good Doctor star Freddie Highmore appeared as a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live! for a new interview with host Jimmy Kimmel. The conversation was quite pleasant, as Kimmel even revealed that ahead of his appearance, Highmore had sent along a kind email to note he was looking forward to it. Kimmel even joked about how abnormal this was for him to see from his guests.
“No one’s ever really looking forward to seeing me, so I appreciated that,” Kimmel said.
Highmore then explained how he likes how it is backstage at Kimmel as well. It’s a different atmosphere from how things were on another talk show he’d appeared on, as Highmore goes on to tell Kimmel and his viewers. Not wanting to start any trouble, Highmore avoids saying which talk show host his story involves, only noting that it’s one that really doesn’t like to see interview guests at all before the show. To appease this unnamed host, Highmore recalls how staffers had literally shoved him into a broom closet in the nick of time, apparently avoiding an unpleasant interaction that may have ensued otherwise.
“Other people, some hosts don’t even want to interact with you,” Highmore said, noting he was trying not to reveal too much. “I’m gonna try to avoid saying the name. This host doesn’t like seeing guests beforehand, and so I was coming backstage with a couple of producers, and they looked up and they saw the host at the end of the corridor, and they were really, really scared.”
The Bates Motel star continued, “They grabbed me, and threw me into the next door that was right there by the hallway. And it was a broom closet. A dark broom closet. And I was there for about a minute, and they were like these sort of Secret Service agents on their phone, like, ‘Are we clear? Are we clear? Have they gone? Can we bring him out?’ [They were] terrified. And then I just walked out as if nothing happened.”
“So, this is a much more pleasant way of spending my evening,” Highmore said to Kimmel. “Thank you for being a decent human being.”
Freddie Highmore Won’t Name Names, But Offered a Hint
Naturally, people are going to wonder who it is that Highmore is speaking of here, but he made sure not to name-drop the talk show host in question. He did, however, offer a bit of a hint when Kimmel started to press the actor. Kimmel joked that it was Kathy Lee Gifford, and while Highmore shuts that down, he reveals that the guess was apparently not too far off.
“Close!” Highmore noted.
Highmore says he doesn’t know for sure if the talk show host even knows how he was thrown into a closet to avoid the person seeing him, just knowing that it was “not a good moment” for him personally. As far as who it was, Kimmel then said to let the people figure it out, presuming that many will be going through Highmore’s IMDb credits trying to further narrow down who this person is.
We’re going to abstain from speculating here by suggesting any specific names, but we can note that multiple talk show hosts have been accused of cruel behavior behind the scenes in recent years, and Highmore has notably been a guest on their shows. Couple that with the Kathy Lee Gifford clue above and it’s probably not too hard to make an educated guess.
