Larry David says he does not regret confronting Alan Dershowitz, but he does regret one thing: not reaching out after Dershowitz’s son died. The new remarks sharpen a rupture that began when the two former friends ended up on opposite sides of Donald Trump’s legal work.
David’s comments surfaced as Dershowitz was profiled in The Atlantic on Tuesday, putting their falling-out back in public view. The dispute is no longer just about a shouted encounter in Martha’s Vineyard in 2021. It is now also about what David thinks he owed a man he once treated as a friend, even as he says Dershowitz “made a deal with the devil.”
Dershowitz said the friendship used to be close. He said he and David used to have dinner and share jokes, and that he let David use his gym to work out. He also said he helped David on several occasions. But after the friendship soured, Dershowitz said David never sent a card or called after his son Elon died last year from a stroke at age 64.
David did not dispute that part. He said Dershowitz was 100 percent right that he should have reached out, and that he regretted not doing so. But he did not soften his broader view of the split. He said he has lots of confrontations on his show but rarely in life, and only if he thinks he can win a fight. That was his explanation for the 2021 Martha’s Vineyard encounter, when he and Dershowitz nearly came to blows outside a convenience store and, according to a report, he screamed at Dershowitz there.
The friction between them runs through Trump, and through everything Dershowitz has done since. David said he was starting to feel a little sorry for him, then added that Dershowitz only has himself to blame for being ostracized. Dershowitz had joined Donald Trump’s legal defense team during Trump’s first impeachment in 2020, after joining Jeffrey Epstein’s legal team in 2005. As recently as this past November, he argued on News Nation that Epstein was not a pedophile, saying the label was misinterpreted and tied to his description of “having sex for money with a 17-year-and-10-month-old person.”
David’s latest comments make the shape of the split plain. He says he should have acted like a friend when Dershowitz’s son died, and he says that regret is real. But he is not backing away from the reason he shouted at him in the first place. For now, the old friendship looks finished, and David is making clear that the personal apology and the political verdict are not the same thing.
