Stevie Wonder Fired DL Hughley From His First Radio Job & 4 Other Things We Learned From DL Hughley’s RadioFacts Interview
DL Hughley is a veteran in the entertainment business. He’s a comedian, an actor, an author and has put in over a decade worth of work in radio. Currently, he hosts The D.L. Hughley Show on REACH Media/Radio One syndication, which has been the show’s home since 2013.
Hughley sat down with RadioFacts.com for an interview where he revealed five new facts you may not have known about his time over the airwaves.
Source: Paul Warner / Contributor / Getty
DL Hughley got fired from his radio gig with Los Angeles’ KJLH by Stevie Wonder.
Radio Facts: I missed you at KJLH because I was on there for a while and that was like the early, I want to say, maybe the late-nineties?
DL: Yeah, because, remember, I got fired by Stevie Wonder?
Radio Facts: What did you do? I don’t remember that. What happened?
DL: Because I said KGLH was so raggedy that even Stevie Wonder could see it.
That’s hilarious but that’s not all we learned! Hit the flip for more facts from DL Hughley’s interview.
Source: Desiree Navarro / Getty
DL Hughley once did radio for free.
Radio Facts: Now when you were doing WRKS in New York that was an interesting situation because you were not actually being paid for that, correct?
DL: You know, it put me in a horrible tax situation because we signed the deal and I thought they would honor it but it ended up not being that way. But I love the medium so much and I thought, well, you know, eventually they’ll work this thing out. Unfortunately, that deal didn’t work out.
Source: Larry Marano / Getty
DL Hughley has a strained relationship with his mother.
DL: My mother was a very young woman. My mother was about 16-years, 17-years-old. So imagine being a kid and raising someone, and you didn’t like the father and the little boy reminds you of the father. I think that played itself out a lot of times. But I don’t have malice and I do understand.
One of the things that relationship taught me is if you’re not certain whether you’re loved in your home, it gives you more freedom than I think a lot of people have. Because once you have affirmation, when you’re young, then you seek it when you don’t have it.
Source: Larry Marano / Getty
DL Hughley might run for office if…
Radio Facts: You talk a lot about politics. Have you ever thought about running?
DL: No, it doesn’t interest me at all. It does interest me from an observational perspective. But I will say this — if I believed that somebody who I knew was harmful and were going to do something, like when Stacey Dash decided she would run and if she just started winning in that district, I would have run. Like if you’re going to take a clown seriously, I’m in it. That’d be the only way I would seriously consider it, is if somebody that I knew who was harmful was running. If she got any traction I would have ran.
Source: Larry Marano / Getty
DL Hughley didn’t do well in school and was put in special ed classes
Radio Facts: What kind of student were you in school?
DL: I was horrible. I was definitely horrible.
Radio Facts: Class clown?
DL: Yeah, but I was a class clown because I was afraid.
Radio Facts: What were you afraid of?
DL: Uh, people knowing that I was inadequate. People knowing when I didn’t know the answer. That’s all it was, man. And it’s one of my greatest regrets because I like learning, but I pretended like I didn’t because I didn’t learn like everybody else. I like learning.
Radio Facts: Did they ever put you in the special classes?
DL: Yes.
Radio Facts: I was in the special class too. I don’t admit that too readily. But I hated public school. I was too creative and distracted.
DL: I don’t know if I was creative, Kevin. But I’ll tell you what, I would be in that class saying I don’t belong here. I don’t belong here.
You can read the entire interview here.
