Pat O'Brien to Address Alcoholism and "Unfortunate Scandal" in Memoir
Jul 5, 2010
by Joyce Eng


Former "Access Hollywood" and "The Insider" anchor Pat O'Brien intends to write a tell-all detailing his struggle with alcoholism and his "unfortunate scandal," in which he left slurred sexually graphic voicemail messages on a woman's phone, he tells the New York Post.

O'Brien, who will co-write the memoir — tentatively titled I Love Your Work — with biographer Andrew Morton, will also address his 2004 divorce from his wife, Linda, which occurred a year before his voicemails leaked.


In the voicemails, O'Brien asked an unidentified woman to join him for drugs and sex. He subsequently entered rehab before returning to "The Insider".

He did another stint in rehab in March 2008 and six months later was fired from "The Insider" after writing e-mails to co-workers that insulted co-host Lara Spencer.







"I was not in total recovery at the time. I was still messed up," O'Brien, 62, told the Post's Page Six.

O'Brien, who says he's been sober for more than 600 days, is considering a multi-year radio deal.


I Love Your Work is scheduled to hit shelves from St. Martin's Press in fall 2011.

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Pat-OBrien-Book-1020180.aspx

...but 20 summers ago, CBS, "B.L." {before Letterman}, was trying out several different talk shows [remember "THE MIDNIGHT HOUR"?] on their late-night schedule after the collapse of "THE PAT SAJAK SHOW" (you mean he actually had his own talk show??). One of them was "OVERTIME", produced by the CBS Sports division and hosted by none other than....Pat O'Brien. For three Fridays in the late summer of 1990, he fronted one of the most inconsequential talk shows I ever saw {let's face it, even Jimmy Kimmel was better than him, which isn't saying much}. He tried to mix sports and celebrity guests, and taped segments concerning "unusual" events ....let's just say Pat was NEVER cut out to be a talk show host; let's say he was somewhere inbetween Rick Dees, who was hosting ABC's "INTO THE NIGHT" that year (HE had a late-night talk show, too??) and Magic Johnson {oh, [I]HIM}. Whatever effervescence he displayed as a play-by-play announcer and interviewer for CBS Sports just wasn't in evidence during those three weeks on "OVERTIME"- and the network never considered him for another talk show again.

As for his tenure on "THE INSIDER", you have to understand that anyone who fronts that kind of daily entertainment gossip program is usually a vapid, "perky" personality that originally came from local news (as was Lara Spencer, who was a general correspondent on WABC-TV's "EYEWITNESS NEWS" in New York at the time of Pat's brief expeience as a talk show host), or an actor/actress who looks good in front of a camera while pretending to be a "celebrity anchor"...and with the passing of time, they often become an "automaton", a living mannequin on "automatic pilot". Lara became such a person- but for Pat O'Brien, it was a living hell for him. I could imagine him thinking through his perpetual genial grin each night, "HELP! GET ME OUT OF THIS STUPID SHOW!! I CAN'T TAKE ANOTHER DAY WORKING NEXT TO THIS BARBIE DOLL FREAK!!!!! I'LL DO ANYTHING TO GET OUT OF MY PARAMOUNT CONTRACT!!! I'LL EVEN CLEAN WINDSHIELDS ON BROADWAY!!!! FOR GOD'S SAKE, WON'T SOMEBODY LISTEN TO ME?????????". That, I'm sure, led Pat towards the drugs, sex, and the e-mails insulting Lara. A shame that should have happened to him....



I'll certainly read his book when it's published.

:tv:

Isn't he the guy who kept drunkenly calling this woman and saying she was "so hot"? :rolleyes: :crazy: :eek: