Four Humiliating Moments from Andre Agassi's 60 Minutes Interview
Lucky Katie Couric scored the tell-all interview timed to coincide with Andre Agassi's tell-all memoir, where the ex-tennis star cops to ruining his career with a meth addiction and to wearing a toupee at the French Open.
He talks about love, he talks about charity, he bares his soul and grapples with the meaning of redemption. But obviously, all anyone cares about is hearing about is hearing about his fake hair, and other humiliations. Here they are:
1. The Time He Was Afraid His Wig Would Fall Off at the French Open. In the early years of his male-pattern baldness, a rabidly narcissistic Agassi took to wearing a flamboyantly high-maintenance weave. As if it wasn't enough that the hair that made him famous was fake, Agassi admits that it was a crappy fake, too: At the 1990 French Open, Agassi's conditioner caused his weave to fall apart, forcing his brother to bobby pin it to his head and the horrified tennis diva to go all sweaty-palmed over whether his scalp pelt would go flying mid-match.
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2. His Girlfriend, Brooke Shields, Convinced Him to Ditch the Pelt and Shave His Head. There is something tragic about the moment when a balding man realizes he can fluff and rearrange no longer, and that it's time to give up on hair entirely. It is even more tragic when said balding man is Andre Agassi, and his famously hot actress girlfriend is the one who has to tell him he's reached the point of no return.
3. Ruined His Career with a Meth Addiction. Couric rattles off members of the tennis community who have public distanced themselves from Agassi following the revelation that he was junked up on meth for "the better part of 1997," when his pro career began to plummet. Confronted with Martina Navratilova's accusation that he is "up there with Roger Clemens," Agassi blinks repeatedly and speaks through a strangled voice as he points out that using steroids to be good at baseball is really nothing like the self-destructive pattern of chronic methamphetamine use, and anyone who equates the two is sort of a jerk. "I had a problem. I would ask for some compassion."
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4. He dumped Brooke Shields. This is only mildly humiliating for Agassi. (What kind of fool dumps Brooke Shields?!) The real humiliation is Brooke's, because she had some really embarrassing relationships in the '80s and '90s, and then, just when it seemed like she had snagged herself a real catch, turned out he was a deeply troubled, self-hating drug addict—and then he dumped her. Good thing Shields' love life worked itself out, because if things had gone differently, she could be deep into Jennifer Aniston territory by now.