Don’t Miss the Stephen Colbert vs. Richard Branson Trainwreck

The blogosphere has been buzzing about an interview pre-recorded between Stephen Colbert and Richard Branson for The Colbert Report.  Now, Comedy Central has revealed that on Wednesday, August 22nd, they will show the controversial interview where billionare Richard Branson, the man behind Virgin and self-proclaimed entrepreneur and adventurist (remember the hot air balloon ride around the world stint?) completely loses it. 

It appears that while appearing on The Colbert Report to promote Air Colbert, part of Virgin’s new American service, Richard Branson felt like he wasn’t being given the opportunity to sufficiently plug his company, brand and new service.  So instead of acting professionally, Richard Branson chose to dump his glass of water on Stephen Colbert.  Now, that’s not the kind of publicity you want for your company.

In case you haven’t heard about the incident, here’s the recap of comments from audience members thanks to Celebitchy:

Audience Member 1:  “I haven’t posted a recap anywhere else, but I’ll spill it here first. Branson was apparently upset that he wasn’t able to give a direct plug to the new Virgin service and doused Colbert with his guest mug of water. Stephen was DRENCHED. He took a beat, then signalled for his own “ammunition” for about twenty seconds until Alison (Silverman) ran and gave him her bottle of water, and Stephen retaliated. The two of them sat for a VERY uncomfortable second looking like two wet cats. Then Stephen thanked him for coming. I really don’t think it was planned, since Stephen had another bit to introduce (the American Samoa Better Know a Protectorate) and a full interview left to do. They had to get him a new jacket and even broke out a blowdryer. Everyone in the crew had a “WTF?” reaction.”

Audience Member 2:  “I forget what the “trigger” was exactly. Let me back up a bit and say that for the first part of the interview Stephen tried to get Branson to sign an IOU for $1 million. Branson was trying to squirm out of signing it. He made the big mistake of trying to appeal to the audience, like “Do you think someone like him really needs a million dollars?”, which made the crowd go BERSERK. Apparently, he was unaware that you don’t try to turn the Nation against Stephen.  I didn’t catch all of what he was saying before the water throw, but it was something along the lines of how he’d been sitting there all that time and didn’t get the chance to say why he was on the show, which confused us and Stephen a little, because it was pretty clear from the top that he was hawking Air Colbert as part of Virgin’s new American service. “

Naturally, Richard Branson’s PR team is spindoctoring the incident as efficiently as they can.  After original responses from his PR team stating that Richard can be unpredictable, they’re latest response to the incident claims his behavior was all in good fun.  I guess we’ll be able to form our own opinions on Wednesday. 

Rumors have also spread that Richard Branson was going to re-tape the interview, so we’ll see what is actually shown on Wednesday night.  Frankly, the damage is already done.  Of course, Richard Branson’s image wasn’t stellar to begin with, but this kind of inappropriate, public behavior only adds fuel to the negative publicity fire.

What do you think?  Will Richard Branson’s bizarre behavior ultimately hurt the Virgin brand?