David Bowie Jokes on 'Conan' in 2002 About Disliking Cincinnati, But We Have Theories That Was a Lie

A video clip of Bowie hating on Cincinnati has made its way to TikTok, but there's plenty of reasons to think the jab was just a joke.

click to enlarge On "Late Night with Conan O'Brian" skit, David Bowie jokes about his distain for Cincinnati, at least we hope it was a joke. - Photo: Youtube, Conan O'Brian
Photo: Youtube, Conan O'Brian
On "Late Night with Conan O'Brian" skit, David Bowie jokes about his distain for Cincinnati, at least we hope it was a joke.

David Bowie, as it turns out, never loved Cincinnati as much as we loved him.

A video clip of the art-rock legend confessing how he really feels about the Queen City has picked up steam on TikTok with more than 32,000 likes. In the video, Bowie sits cross-armed with a lit cigarette recalling a show from 1989.

“I was on a tour in the United States back in '89, and we did a show in Cincinnati. During that show I shouted out, ‘It’s great to be in Cincinnati!' That was a lie,” Bowie tells the camera directly.

@david._bowie Can’t get better than that. Only in Ohio. { #davidbowie #glamrock #onlyinohio ♬ Only in Ohio - ✨🪐 David Bowie 🪐✨

In a sea of Ohio-hating comments below the video, one person comes to our homeland’s defense.

“Oh c’mon David, it’s not that bad…” reads a comment from @Sxdemarest.

But there’s a chance Bowie was actually kidding.

The clip used in the TikTok is actually from a longer segment on Late Night with Conan O’Brien back in Nov. 2002. The sketch called “Bowie: Secrets” was teed up by host Conan O'Brien as containing “some pretty dark stuff,” warning parents to send their kids out of the room.

Bowie proceeds to spill his guts, foreboding music looming in the background, sharing his deepest untold thoughts.

“Sometimes when I’m at a McDonald’s and nobody is looking, I stick my hand in the straw dispenser and touch all the straws,” he says with the utmost seriousness. “I’ve reinvented my image so many times that I’m in denial that I was originally an overweight Korean woman.”

Watch Bowie’s skit on Conan from 2002:


There is another indication Bowie’s jab at Cincinnati might have been in jest – Bowie never actually hit Cincinnati during his ‘89 tour. In fact, Bowie only made two stops in Cincinnati during his touring years. The first was on June 25, 1974 for his "Diamond Dogs" tour at Cincinnati Gardens, and the other was on Feb. 23, 1976 for his "Isolar" tour at Riverfront Coliseum (now the Heritage Bank Center).

Perhaps the "Young Americans" in the comments on TikTok shouldn’t rush to hate on the state.




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