He wasn’t so suave.
Richard Gere shocked “Today” host Savannah Guthrie when he kicked off their interview by extending his middle finger to her.
“You just did an obscene gesture on this family morning show!” Guthrie said to Gere.
She held papers up to hide his hand from the audience and added, “I’m bleeping you!”
Gere isn’t the only big star to behave badly on “Today.” Cher recently appeared on the show and dropped a profanity, which Guthrie pointed out.
“You know, Cher was on here doing an F-bomb yesterday so I don’t know what’s happening!” she continued.
It seemed out of character for the normally suave “Pretty Woman” star, 75.
But, Gere was doing a scene from his upcoming Paramount+/Showtime espionage series, “The Agency.”
“To preview the show, “Today” showed a clip of Gere in “The Agency,” but the clip cut off before he apparently flipped the bird. So, he took it upon himself to do it live, and finish the scene.
“You didn’t show but that’s what I did in the piece!” Gere explained. “That’s what the clip was!”
Guthrie countered, “That’s what the clip was, but we cut that part out. But then you did it live!”
Gere defended himself by saying, “I could see that but it didn’t make any sense without that!”
He later joked, “My hand did that, I have no control!”
The previous day, on Tuesday, Nov. 19, Cher, 78, dropped an f-bomb while discussing her divorce from her late ex-husband Sonny Bono.
Cher, who just released her new memoir, talked to Hoda Kotb about how she sought advice from Lucille Ball while wrestling with the idea of leaving Bono amid their marital issues.
When Kotb, 60, asked what Ball told her, Cher replied, “I can’t say it on TV. Do you wanna bleep it?
When Kotb assured her they would bleep it, Cher continued, “I’d known her when I was little. I said, ‘Lucy, I’m calling you because to my knowledge there’s never been a situation besides me like yours,’” Cher explained, noting that Ball famously left Desi Arnaz in 1960.
“She said, ‘F–k him, you’re the one with the talent,’” Cher said.
Kotb and other members of the “Today” team behind the camera audibly gasped and laughed in response to Cher dropping the f-bomb.
Gere’s new show, “The Agency,” premiers Nov. 29 on Paramount+/Showtime.
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