Ringo Walks, Dave Stewart Dishes

We love it when a star shucks his handler and speaks his mind without a script.

David Stewart, the former Eurythmic, said this about Ringo Starr's walking off the "Live With Regis & Kelly" set yesterday after a producer ruled Ringo's performance would be too long for the attention spans of the viewing audience:

"Four minutes (3 minutes and 40 seconds, actually) seemed like an appropriate amount of time for a former Beatle. Mr. Gelman apparently felt Ringo's musical legacy should take a back seat to additional banter about the size of Ms. (Kelly) Ripa's derriere."

The song was "Liverpool 8." Before you go hoisting Ringo onto a pedestal for artistic integrity, here's the YouTube video for the song he was to play. That's Stewart on guitar.

The armchair critics are commenting in brutal fashion, for instance:

sanctimonious talentless tuneless bile

Not everyone's so nasty, however:

Hey, he's having fun. And remember Ringo was there to remind us that the Beatles were human....Oh, Yeah it does sound like an adolescent wrote it, but that's what rock'n roll is ultimately about.

Ringo did trim the song for Letterman, but was allowed to go full length for Rachael Ray, that patron of the arts.