Summary
- Wayne Newton and Johnny Carson had a rift that started because Carson constantly made jokes about him.
- Newton confronted Carson and threatened to beat him up.
- Newton blamed Carson for linking him to the Mafia.
Musician Wayne Newton and Johnny Carson are legendary performers. While the former is best known as a pop singer, and the latter a talk show host, they were so charismatic and famous that they transcended these roles and were "celebrities" in the purest sense. It should then come as no surprise that Newton and Carson were friendly. At least, for a while.
What started out as a professional relationship turned personal, and a rift developed between Newton and Carson that lasted until the latter's death in 2005. The rift included verbal insults, legal action, and a particularly fraught confrontation that nearly ended in a fistfight. It's all very unexpected given the poise of both performers, but that's part of what makes their feud so interesting...
Johnny Carson's Jokes About Wayne Newton's Masculinity Started Their Feud
Wayne Newton revealed the origin of his feud with Johnny Carson during a 2007 episode of "Larry King Live." He noted that he had made several appearances on "The Tonight Show", where Carson would regularly chat with his guests, and considered the host to be a "friend," but things took an unexpected turn between them in the 1970s.
It was during this time that the singer became a consistent target for Carson during his nightly monologues.
Carson would constantly poke fun at Newton's appearance, his height, and his masculinity. It grew to be so bothersome that the singer was genuinely unsure of whether he had indirectly slighted Carson in the past without realizing it. Newton spent a year and a half trying to get in touch with the talk show host, but the jokes persisted. It got so bad, in fact, that Newton told the Las Vegas Review-Journal the jokes caught on with other comedians:
“He was very angry with me and started jokes on his show, and having other comedians join in with those jokes about my lack of manhood, I guess is the best way to say it. There was no rhyme or reason for it. No truth, in fact, at all."
Newton had no interest in repairing his friendship with Carson, who was widely viewed as a generous performer who helped to give several comedians their big break.
He just wanted to make the jokes stop. "I’m going to say something I’ve never said on television, Mr. King," he said.
"Johnny Carson was a mean-spirited human being. And there are people that he has hurt that people will never know about. And for some reason, at some point, he decided to turn that kind of negative attention towards me. And I refused to have it."
Wayne Newton Confronted Johnny Carson During An NBC Meeting And Threatened To Beat Him Up
Wayne Newton got fed up with trying to contact Johnny Carson through proper channels, so he decided to simply barge in on the talk show host during a meeting with NBC producer Fred de Cordova. Newton asked the producer to leave the room, and, per his recollection on "Larry King Live", threatened to beat Carson up if he didn't stop making jokes at his expense:
"I said to Mr. Carson, I said, 'I don’t know what friend of yours I’ve killed. I don’t know what child of yours I’ve hurt. I don’t know what food I’ve taken out of your mouth. But these jokes about me will stop, and they’ll stop now or I will kick your a*s.'"
Newton said that Carson tried to downplay the confrontation by claiming to be the singer's biggest fan, but it didn't work. "I said, 'Don't give me that," Newton added. "[I said] 'I am here to straight out whatever your problem is, and whichever way you want to straighten it out is fine with me.'"
The approach seemed to work, as the jokes ceased, but the adversarial relationship between Newton and Carson did not. Both men were fixtures of the Las Vegas scene throughout their careers, and when the opportunity arose to buy the Aladdin Motel in 1980, Newton came out on top.
Carson and his partner, Ed Nigro, had their offer turned down in favor of the singer, and as such, rumors began to surface that Newton was involved with the Mafia.
Wayne Newton Blamed Johnny Carson For Linking Him To The Mafia And Later Won A Libel Lawsuit Against NBC
The rumors about Wayne Newton's involvement with the Mafia grew so rampant that he had to publicly denounce them to the Los Angeles Times in 1986. Where did these accusations stem from? The singer is convinced that it was his talk show nemesis, Johnny Carson. He made it clear to Larry King that he felt Carson had the power and the connections to make such a ludicrous theory stick:
"I think ultimately, the whole thing that evolved later on, around 1980, where I was accused of fronting for the Mafia and being a member of the Mafia, and then being extorted by the Mafia and all of that, all of that emanated from Johnny Carson’s influence."
It was a publicity nightmare for Newton, but the singer ultimately got the last laugh. Well, sort of. He won a $5.2 million libel lawsuit against Carson's network, NBC, which was the largest win against a news organization in a libel trial in Hollywood history, but it was overturned by the federal appeals court in 1990. According to the New York Times, the network's claim that Newton was linked to organized crime "had not been shown be deliberately or recklessly false."
Newton filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1992, largely due to the debt he accumulated during the NBC lawsuit. The Journal Record confirmed that the singer was ordered to pay an even bigger sum to the IRS in 2005 (specific details below), the year that Johnny Carson died, but he was able to recover and rebuild his wealth through his lucrative Las Vegas residencies.
| Year | IRS Taxes Owed According to The Journal Record | Status |
| 1992 | $341,000 | Paid |
| 2005 | $1.8 million | Settled |
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Newton is currently worth $50 million.
Newton currently holds the title of highest-grossing entertainer in Las Vegas history, and is often referred to as "Mr. Entertainment," a nickname that would've probably rubbed "The King of Late Night" the wrong way.
