Fighting words: When interviews go wrong

What happens when an interview goes badly wrong? That’s entertainment, says Nadine O’Regan - even if it can ruin a career or two in its aftermath

Van Morrison: questioned whether Guardian writer Laura Barton was a real journalist in a recent interview (inset) Demi Moore on the cover of Vanity Fair

What’s better than an interview going well? Easy, some say: an interview going very badly indeed.

There’s often little more excruciating for an interviewer – or more riveting for an audience – than the spectacle of an interview going publicly off the rails. Think of Meg Ryan refusing to talk to Michael Parkinson on his chat show in 2003 (she looked so uncomfortable that she suggested that Parkinson “wrap it up”). Or Graham ...