Fran Lebowitz: 'You do not know anyone as stupid as Donald Trump'

Be grateful you didn’t sit next to Fran Lebowitz on the plane from New York to Melbourne. The trip was the longest flight she had taken, and therefore the longest time she managed to go without a cigarette. When I ask if it is her first time in Australia, she says: “That makes it sound as if there’s going to be a second time.” She surprised herself by not being taken off the flight in handcuffs for assaulting fellow (first-class) passengers or smoking in the toilets.

“I was like a child on the plane, asking the flight attendant, ‘Are we there?’ And she said, ‘Are you nuts? We’ve only been flying for four hours.’ The only people who live in Australia are those who came to Australia and couldn’t face the trip back – I’m actually one of those people.”

Lebowitz has been invited to Australia several times but, as a longtime smoker, 30 hours on a flight without a cigarette was out of the question.