Seth Meyers’ wife gives birth in their lobby - and Uber charges them for a cancelled ride
THERE are a lot of incredible elements to the story that Seth Meyers told Monday on NBC’s “Late Night”: His wife, Alexi, went into labour so quickly on Sunday that she gave birth to their baby boy in the lobby of their apartment building. Neighbours brought them hot towels to keep the baby warm. A member of the New York City Fire Department had to cut the umbilical cord.
All apparently went well, as Meyers - who got choked up a couple of times during the retelling - showed off pictures of his new son, who was quickly taken to the hospital after his dramatic entrance into the world.
And yet, there’s another shocking element to the tale: Meyers called an Uber to take them to the hospital - but once his wife started physically giving birth as soon as she got into the lobby, they had to bail on that plan. And Uber still charged them for a cancelled ride.
Meyers described the situation like so: When his wife started to have contractions, they realised they better get going to the hospital. “We get into the lobby of our building. I have called an Uber. The Uber is outside,” Meyers explained. “And we basically get to the steps of our building, we’re in the lobby and we’re walking down the steps, and my wife just says, ‘I can’t get in the car. I’m going to have the baby right now; the baby is coming.’”
Later in the story, Meyers ticked off a list of people he wanted to thank: the doormen in their building, the police officers
We are so happy for Seth and Alexi on the birth of their second child. We’ve refunded the trip and send them our best wishes. Uber spokesman
and firefighters who showed up to help, the doctors. Then he added a bleeped-out expletive directed at “the Uber driver who charged me.”
The audience burst into laughter and started applauding. “I mean, for real,” Meyers continued. “Because we did you a huge favour.”
Meyers started laughing, because probably the nicest thing you can do for an Uber driver is not give birth in their back seat. Still, it’s the principle of the thing. “We were about to, like, ‘negative star’ your Uber!” he said.
Granted, it’s possible that the Uber driver didn’t realise why the ride was cancelled (Meyers was a bit preoccupied, after all) and the policy is to charge a cancellation fee if someone doesn’t show up to their car.
And don’t worry, the story has a happy ending - although a “Late Night” spokeswoman declined to elaborate on whether they got a refund, when we reached out to Uber on Tuesday morning, a spokesman sent us the following statement:
“We are so happy for Seth and Alexi on the birth of their second child. We’ve refunded the trip and send them our best wishes.”