‘The industry is predictable – there’s a lot of gatekeeping’: Reggie Watts is the last weirdo left on TV

The Late Late Show’s band, from left, Tim Young, Reggie Watts, Hagar Ben Ari, Guillermo Brown Photograph: CBS Photo Archive/CBS/Getty Images

If it hadn’t been for “the slap heard round the world”, this award season would be remembered as the year of the late night band leader. First, The Tonight Show’s Questlove took the best documentary Oscar for his directorial debut, Summer of Soul. A week later The Late Show’s Jon Batiste cleaned up at the Grammys – winning, among others, album of the year for his fifth studio record, We Are.

Where’s the love for The Late Late Show’s bandleader, Reggie Watts? “I mean, I haven’t produced anything,” he jokes, “so it’s not all that shocking.”