Actor Jeff Garlin, who is best known for his work in “Curb Your Enthusiasm” alongside Larry David, claims he once tried to introduce himself to Warren Sapp in an airport and Sapp wound up bullying him. Garlin told the story on Shade 45’s “Sway in the Morning” show when asked if he has ever had any awkward encounters with celebrities, and you’ll never guess what happened next.
By pure coincidence, Sapp was the next guest in studio. Here’s Garlin’s story.
“You know who was the worst? Warren Sapp, a few years back, was gonna beat me up,” he said. “I was in an airport. We have a mutual friend. He was nice, but dismissive. I approached him later again — he didn’t know who I was, which is cool and I don’t care — and I said, ‘Look, (the mutual friend) really is a friend of mine.’
Garlin claims Sapp then seemed irritated and said “I know,” at which point Garlin apologized for bothering him and turned to walk away.
“Then he goes, ‘I hear the s— you’re saying,'” Garlin recalled. “And I said, ‘I am not saying anything.’ And I wasn’t saying anything. Then he put his arms up like he was gonna hit me and wanted me to jump.”
As you might expect, Sapp remembers it differently. When he came into the studio after Garlin (we’re not sure if they crossed paths), Sapp made it seem like Garlin was annoying him for no reason.
“First of all he’s got to stop the lying,” Sapp said. “I raised my hand like I wanted to hit him in an airport? OK, the flight’s at 8:05 in the morning, so you know you have to be there an hour before. I’m up at 6:30 trying to get to the airport. He walks up like, ‘I’m real good friends with Rich Eisen!’ OK, what the hell that got to do with me and you? Before 8 o’clock in the morning…
“And then he came back and said, ‘No, no, no, we’re real good (friends)!’ What the hell that got to do with me and you? If you’re gonna walk over and say, ‘Hi Warren, how you doing? I’m Jeff Garlin I do Curb Your Enthusiasm with the bald-headed dude that’s on Rich’s Twitter page.’ I don’t know what the hell the dumbass show is.”
TMZ has video of both guys telling their side of the story, and there is probably some truth in each one. We certainly know Sapp can be an irritable guy, as evidenced by the bad waitress tipping incident earlier this year. It sounds like Garlin was just trying to be cordial and Sapp wanted nothing to do with it. If you ask me, that’s Warren in a nutshell.
H/T SI Hot Clicks
