DC Trawler

Keith Olbermann: “Wanting to be on television is a mental illness” (UPDATE: Further evidence!)

Jim Treacher Blogger
Font Size:

Admitting the problem is half the battle.

Good ol’ Keith is interviewed in the latest GQ, and it’s tediously pompous and delusional because it’s Keith. But he did say one interesting thing:

Television is a mental illness. Wanting to be on television is a mental illness. Wanting to be president of the United States, wanting to be an actor—these are degrees of the same mental illness. If you need to be approved of simultaneously by more people than are in this room now, there’s a problem. I don’t know what would happen if television—or fame—stopped tomorrow for all the people who are pursuing it, what they would do. I suspect the idea of the zombie apocalypse is based on that…

I’m gonna eat your flesh unless you applaud me! And that’s the predicate here of my own self-analysis. But you find yourself at various times in your life being fearful, because you don’t know how to function in some environment in which you’re not being applauded by a thousand people or more at once. So many times I’ve looked back with a kind of sympathetic disgust at my personal conduct till age 40.

Whereas his behavior since then has been exemplary.

I think becoming a zombie would be good for Keith Olbermann. It’d give him a chance to cut carbs and not talk so much. Bring on the apocalypse!

Update: Speaking of mental illness…

Huh. That’s weird, because back on July 16, the NYT reported:

ESPN is expected to announce on Wednesday that the former network mainstay Keith Olbermann, who contentiously departed in 1997, will return to host a one-hour, nightly show for ESPN2 later this year, according to three executives with knowledge of the deal but not authorized to speak about it publicly…

On his new show, Olbermann will be free to discuss matters other than sports, including pop culture and current events, but not politics, the two-year pact specifies.

Which one is Keith Olbermann accusing of lying, ESPN or the New York Times?

Update: