For anyone who thinks Regis Philbin is all Rat Pack nostalgia and good-natured self-referencing, prepare for a shock: somewhere under that housewife-friendly exterior lurks a red-blooded male ready to do some perving.
As Nicki Minaj (and her booty) found out this week.
Lil Wayne's protégé appeared on Live With Regis and Kelly on Monday (alongside our own Joel McHale) and after performing took center stage with Reeg and Kelly Ripa for what should have been a little small talk and a lot of album plugging.
What happened instead was that the 79-year-old Philbin decided to channel his inner Joan Rivers and closely inspect—make that very closely inspect—the hemline of Minaj's dress. Let's just say it wasn't only her fabric that Regis was interested in feeling.
"Lol. I was in shock!" Nicki tweeted of the unexpected grope after her appearance. Ditto his hapless cohost, who asked the crowd, "What just happened?!"
And just in case that wasn't enough dirty old man overload for viewers, the fun didn't stop there.
Regis then decided to ask Minaj what advice Lil Wayne had offered her on her career, and she replied, "Go hard." Which, as you can imagine, was just too good an opening for Philbin to let pass by.
"Go hard? Wish I could!" he exclaimed. He may be the only one.