Bobby Bones (25:58)
Okay, what was Lionel Richie like? First of all, I was on Idol for four years and Lionel Richie is famous. Whenever being famous was, everybody knew you. Now famous, so fractured. You can be like the greatest broccoli influencer. And like, people like, oh, I follow Trisha Broccoli and she's like, she's famous to, like, a very select few people. It's hard to be just ubiquitous where you exist everywhere. Lionel Richie was that famous. Like, this is like the 80s, the early 90s. So massively rich, obviously. Massive star. Not only writing, singing, tour and in every way. So you really don't know how cool someone's going to be when they are that big. But through my experience now of having a life of working with middle, easy, famous and very famous people, the very famous people are often the nicest because they have nothing to prove. There is no insecurity. The comparison would be soap opera actor to Tom Hanks. Well, Tom Hanks has nothing to prove. Tom Hanks is just a dude, good dude being who he is because he has no insecurity. He's Tom Hanks. Where the soap opera actor may be like, yeah, I'm cool. I got my. All my guys with me. I got my crowd, my posse, where I got all my fancy clothes on, trying to prove how cool I am. Well, Lionel Richie was the absolute kindest, greatest guy ever. I have two really fun Lionel Richie stories now. I was fortunate enough to get to be around him a lot. It wasn't even just a spot here, a spot there. Like, we would have dinners and when Lionel would tell a story, everybody shuts up. And that's a room where people are again fighting for oxygen because Luke Bryan's there and you know, Luke now, and Katy Perry's there and Lionel's there and I'm there and Ryan Seacrest is there. And so. And Katie at the time, like Katie's husband, Orlando Bloom was there. So everybody has like, everybody's used to be in the center of attention in that group. So it's almost like a battle royal. Who's going to win? So everybody's doing story after story, but when Lionel starts talking and he's very. He's calm, he's very calculated, and he's like, you know, Aretha Franklin once left me a voicemail everybody shuts up immediately because Lionel's talking. He doesn't demand it, but because he's Lionel and he has the greatest stories, he automatically gets it. Story number one. We were in Savannah, Georgia, and we're all sitting around a dinner table, and again, same thing. Everybody's talking, and it's just like, you wait for somebody to take a breath, you jump in with a story, or you just get swallowed. So everybody's doing their thing. And Lionel goes, you know, I flew from California over to Europe. And I'm just going to paraphrase the story a little bit, but he was like, most of the time, I would fly private. I'd fly my own plane, he said, and this time, I wasn't able to get my plane, so I flew commercial. Now, Lionel has been a hundred millionaire, billionaire. I don't know for how long. So you know what? Not crazy that he flew privately from the states to Europe, because that's about a $200,000 flight. But if Lionel's flying over to play some prince's private show for a million dollars, that's. That's that. And he wants to fly over. Yeah, he wants to fly over and have his energy. And he said, I was flying commercial, and I was in first class, and I decided to take a nap, and I wasn't used to all the people around me, and so I fell asleep, and I woke up, and there was a phone taking a picture of me. And I was a little startled by the phone because I'm not used to people taking pictures of me while I sleep. And he said, so I called the flight attendant over, and I said, flight attendant, would I be able to get an acai smoothie with a certain kind of berry with a little honey, and can I get it with some cinnamon? And she said, no, we don't have that. And he said, that's the last time I'm flying commercial. But it was like such a version of a rich guy that I was like, dang. Even when Lionel tells us stories of being rich, like, he's awesome. But my favorite, favorite favorite ever was we were about to do an episode of Idol. I think it was my second season there. And Ryan had never missed a show. Ryan is on time all the time, everywhere. The ultimate professional is Ryan Seacrest. And it was about 12 minutes before the show started, and Ryan still was not there. And so they began to be concerned. And he called. He's like, I'm sick. I can't even get up. And usually if you're sick and I've done this doing my standup shows. You get a steroid shot, it takes a minute, you get it back for a while, you got a bunch of energy, and then you die afterward. But you're able to get the job done. Ryan was. He was so sick, he was not able to do that. So it's minutes before the show starts, and they say, hey, Bobby, we need you to host the show. Now, I don't think it's bigger than I am, but I had no rehearsing as far as, like, where to go on the stage. Stage direction is a big deal, especially doing live television, because cameras are going. It was also a celebrity episode where celebrities were singing with the artists. And so I'm like, okay, cool. Can you run me through stage direction real quick? And they're like, got it. So they run me through, and there's like four minutes left. And all of a sudden, I'm standing backstage, I'm just kind of looking at notes, and someone taps me on the shoulder. Now, where the judges sit when we record is all the way across the theater. I mean, it is a pretty far walk, and so it wasn't a short walk. But with about four minutes to go, that tap on my shoulder, I turn around and it's Lionel Richie. And he's like, bobby. And I say, hey, Lionel, what's up? He goes, I just wanted to give you some words of encouragement. He goes, the year was 1971. And I'm in, right? I know we only got four minutes, but he's talking slow. He's also talking slow. And I'm like, oh, boy, we're going to get there in time. And he says, the Commodores. He goes, that was my band. And the Commodores, we had never really had a look on national television. And we get a call, and they're like, they need you on American Bandstand in five hours. Can you be there? And. And we looked at each other, and we're like, are we ready for this? And we thought. We don't think we're ready. But you know what? We're going to show up, and we're going to do it. And you know what, Bobby? We showed up and we dominated that night on American Bandstand. And that is a big reason as to why the Commodores existed. And that's why Lionel Richie is right here on this show, because when they called us, we showed up and we did it to the best of our ability, what we had been practicing for our whole life. And that is what you're about to do, right Now. So I want you to walk out there and be the Commodores. And I'm thinking to myself as you're talking, this is like the coolest pump up speech I've ever had in my whole life. Like, this is a crazy Lionel Richie. And so it almost felt like a TV show. Especially those Christmas shows where Santa Claus is like talking to somebody and they know Santa Claus is like Uncle Frank or something. But then you turn around and Santa Claus is gone. And you're like, maybe that was Santa Claus. I turned around, there's no Lionel Richie. He was nowhere. I don't know how he. He was over 70 years old and he was gone. And I look back and he's.
