John Mellencamp Smokes On Letterman Despite Past Heart Attack, Says ‘Smoking Is My Strong Suit’

John Mellencamp certainly doesn’t let a heart attack stop him from smoking his cigarettes. On Monday’s Late Night With David Letterman, the rocker smoked throughout his chat with the late ...
John Mellencamp Smokes On Letterman Despite Past Heart Attack, Says ‘Smoking Is My Strong Suit’
Written by Pam Wright
  • John Mellencamp certainly doesn’t let a heart attack stop him from smoking his cigarettes.

    On Monday’s Late Night With David Letterman, the rocker smoked throughout his chat with the late night host.

    After sharing tales of their respective heart attacks, John Mellencamp said smoking is his thing.

    “Here’s the way it plays out, Dave,” he said of his smoking habit. “I’m only good at about three or four things and smoking is my strong suit. My body is so polluted that anything — now, I’m not a doctor, you know that, right? I’m not a doctor — So I figure, my body is so polluted now that nothing can live in there. Cancer can go in there and go, ‘I’m not going in there!’ There’s gotta be somebody else better to go into and destroy.”

    “I’m gonna keep smoking and I’m good at it,” John Mellencamp added. “I’ve written a couple of good songs, I’m kind of good on stage, and I have a good first kiss. Other than that, I’m not worth a s–t. I’m useless!”

    Earlier in the interview, John Mellencamp had difficulties remembering the location of his 1994 heart attack, but did remember being told he’d had one.

    “I didn’t feel well, I was on tour, and I went back to Bloomington, where they have real doctors,” the Indiana native recalled to Letterman, who is also hails from Indiana. “The guy looked at me and he said, ‘You’ve had a heart attack.’ I went nuts… I called him everything in the book… He said, ‘John, you can say whatever you want to me or act any way you want, but a first-year medical student can tell you you’ve had a heart attack.'”

    “They’d been telling me for years to get on cholesterol medicine and I would go, ‘Am I alright now?’ And they’d go, ‘Yeah.’ And so, I’d think, ‘Well I’m alright now…'” said John Mellencamp. “But if I would’ve done what they had told me to do in the first place… My arms hurt, both arms hurt, and I was more grouchy than normal. I was more bitchy than normal.”

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