Tim Gunn shares amazing anecdote about growing up as the son of J. Edgar Hoover’s speechwriter

When Tim Gunn paid a visit to Seth Meyers on NBC’s Late Night this week, they touched on expected topics like Project Runway and First Lady Michelle Obama’s acclaimed since of style.

Then came the unexpected.

Meyers brought up the fact that Gunn’s father, George William Gunn, was an FBI agent during the administration of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

This led to Gunn telling a hilarious story involving his parents.

‘(Dad) brought home a pre-publication copy of the Warren Commission report on the JFK assassination. My mother is curious – a little nosy. That evening, mother has disappeared, we hear the bath water running in the bathroom. Dad realizes that The Warren Commission report is gone.’

What happens next is amazing.

‘He goes to the bathroom and it’s locked and she won’t open the door. He doesn’t debate it, he doesn’t threaten. He doesn’t do anything but quickly disappear. He’s gone to the garage and returned with an ax.

‘Within 30 seconds, there is splintered wood everywhere and the door is down.’

Observed a laughing Meyers: ‘What a perfectly normal way to grow up!’

The elder Gunn’s office was directly next door to that of Hoover who was FBI director from 1935 until his death in 1977. After his death, Hoover became a controversial figure as evidence of his secretive abuses of power began to surface.

Hoover was also widely reported to be secretly gay.

‘Dad was very quiet and private about hos work life,’ Gunn said. ‘He did not talk about it very often but he was Hoover’s ghostwriter. He wrote his books, his speeches and took care of all his correspondence.’