Did Doug Benson Help Get Quentin Tarantino Sober?
Comedian and pot podcaster Doug Benson has had many great stories about smoking pot with interesting people, but today on the Ron and Fez Show he told what could possibly be the ultimate pot story. Benson told Ron Bennington about the night that he got high with director, Quentin Tarantino, and then later learned that he may have been indirectly responsible for the famed director quitting drugs. He doesn’t know what he did that may have turned Tarantino off of drug use, but, it started when Benson met Tarantino at a screening of Speed at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, years ago.
We were all at one of those Saturday Night sneak peeks that they do sometimes for big movies, where it’s like a week before it opens. We saw, at the Chinese Theater, Speed with Keanu Reeves that night and just ran into Tarantino there, and invited him back to our place, cause he was friendly with Margaret Cho, and she was also there, I think.
According to Benson, they were all getting high back at the house when suddenly, Tarantino just up and left.
“He was at a party with me and some of my friends, not far from his house in the Hollywood Hills. And we were all sitting around getting high, and he was talking a lot, seemed to be having a great time, and we were all thrilled that he was there. And then all of a sudden he just got up and said, I gotta go, goodbye, and ran out the door.”
Bennington asked Benson if he did anything embarrassing that would have caused Tarantino to bolt– you know, like eat Bugles off his own fingertips. Benson said that no, he hadn’t, and they were all surprised to see him take off, because apparently it was Tarantino who had been doing most of the talking at the party that night. “So it’s not like anybody said anything that offended him,” Benson said.
“I never told that story or even thought of it quite that way,” Benson later said, but a few months later, Benson remembers reading an interview in a magazine where Tarantino mentioned that night.
“A few months later. . .he was talking about that party, and how that night he realized that he was wasting too much of his time doing drugs and that he should hunker down and take things more seriously.”
Benson ran into him again at a party just a couple years ago, and says QT was super friendly and was “joking around and stuff.” Looking back, Benson said, “I just think he really hit his own personal wall of being fucked up on whatever else he was doing. Cause I just smoke weed but who knows whatever else he was on, cause he kind of made it sound like it was more than just pot.”
And, Benson quickly pointed out, “he’s been super prolific ever since, so maybe I did him, and the world a favor.” Way to go Doug!
You can hear the interview in its entirety exclusively on SiriusXM OnDemand. Doug Benson is a stand up comedian with several podcasts, some live, and some taped, including his YouTube podcast “Getting Doug With High”, “Doug Loves Movies” and “The Benson Interruption”. Ron Bennington hosts three radio shows on SiriusXM satellite radio, including Unmasked, Ron Bennington Interviews, and The Ron and Fez Show which airs daily from noon to 3pm et. Follow Ron and Fez on twitter @RonandFezSXM.
