American comedian-actor and alleged rapist Bill Cosby and British alt-crooner Morrissey have very little in common. And yet, their paths crossed in a very turbulent and public way on June 14, 1991, when they were both booked as guests on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, as Dan Ozzi describes in a compelling article for Vice’s Noisey. At the time, Cosby—star of his own Emmy-winning sitcom—was arguably the most famous and beloved celebrity in the world, and the former Smiths singer was definitely kind of well-known. He wasn’t Cosby-level famous, though, at least not with mass audiences. But by that late-spring day, following the release of his third solo album, Kill Uncle, he had amassed a small but fervent army of fans, many of whom had descended upon Carson’s Burbank studio in hopes of muscling their way inside for the taping.
One of the two songs that Morrissey chose to perform for NBC’s cameras was “There’s A Place In Hell For Me And My Friends.” That proved to be somewhat prophetic, because on that day, that place in hell was right there on stage—for showbiz vets Cosby and Carson at any rate, as they struggled against the live audience of youthful Moz fans to conduct themselves admirably for the at-home viewers.