Andrew Dice Clay: still making raunchy racket
4/30/2009Time has not mellowed Andrew Dice Clay.
The 51-year-old comic, who made a name for himself in the late-1980s and early 1990s with his raunchy, expletive-filled rants, was a contestant on this season s Celebrity Apprentice. It went as badly as you think it would, and The Dice Man was the first celebrity fired by The Donald.
After nearly three months to the day the show aired on NBC, Dice is still irritated over his experiences on the show, and in a recent phone interview with The Blade he didn t spare the show, or Trump, any of his obscenity-laced barbs. He was scheduled to perform here Friday night, but slow ticket sales caused him to cancel.
Q: Talk about your experiences on Celebrity Apprentice 2.
A: I ll be on it the 10th [of May] for the final episode. It s always fun to do a show like that because it gets big ratings and sells tickets when you re in concert. That s how I look at something like that.
Q: Trump seemed to suggest in the boardroom that the two of you are friends. Is that the case?
A: No. There s nothing about friends with him. Did I ever perform in his casinos? Yeah, but I wouldn t say we re friends. He never calls me, we don t hang out, we don t go to the mall together. He s an OK guy. I didn t get mad when he fired me, I thought it was stupid on his part. They lost just about a quarter of their audience the following week. That s a big chunk of people to get angry when you fired the only entertainment you had on the show. Who s going to entertain? Brian McKnight? I turned on certain episodes to see what s going on, and there s Brian McKnight trying to make believe he s angry at something. It s hysterical. Or the hick
Q: Clint Black.
A: Yeah. Just making believe I m mad. They saw what I did, but you can t be me. I m bigger than the show. I m Dice. I did something in this world that nobody is ever going to do, in the world I m in, the stand-up world. A guy like, what s his name again? Clint Black, the country bumpkin. It s normal for a country singer to sell millions of albums, it s not normal for a comic. It s not normal to sell out hundreds of arenas. Those are the things I did. I changed the face of comedy forever.
As far as Donny goes, it was just stupid business. He touts himself as this great businessman, but yet I m going to take my ace in the hole that s going to keep people watching, and tell him to leave. Because his ego s so big, if he s not the focus he don t like that.
Q: You came across as pampered and, perhaps, even a little bit prima donna when you gave Donald Trump a hard time for not providing breakfast for you and the other contestants.
A: When you re up at 5:30 in the morning, you want something to eat. I m a night bird, I m up to 3, 4 in the morning. And this guy is supposed to be somebody, and you come up there, there should be like a big bowl of ... bagels. You don t have to have the full-course menu just something to get us going: coffee, bagels, not the little cappuccino machine, just something substantial. We re turning our whole schedule around, that s why I got mad about that. If he doesn t like it ... He s nobody to me.
Contact Kirk Baird at:kbaird@theblade.comor 419-724-6734.