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Rand Paul loves the spotlight. He just doesnt love the people who wield it.

In February, the Kentucky senator scolded CNBC anchor Kelly Evans as she tried to ask him about a bill he co-sponsored.

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You have taken an interview and youve made an interview into something where we got no useful information because you were argumentative and you started out with so many preoppositions [sic] that were incorrect, he said.

The interview continued, but Paul wasnt done with the tongue-lashing, and went back to media criticism a few minutes later.

Part of the problem is that you end up having interviews like this where the interview is so slanted and full of distortions that you dont get useful information, he said. I think this is what is bad about TV sometimes. So frankly, I think if we do this again, you need to start out with a little more objectivity going into the interview.

Clips of the interview quickly went viral as headlines blared how Rand Paul tears into, snaps, shushes and belittles the CNBC host.

Rand Paul needs to be shushed, read a headline from a piece by Joan Walsh on Salon.com. To some men, apparently, an assertive woman is out of control and needs to calm down especially if shes succeeded in upsetting his calm, she wrote.

PBS NewsHour host Gwen Ifill warned in a blog post soon after the interview that whether or not he considers questions from the press to be distorted, Paul might want to get used to concealing his irritation. That sort of viral video lives forever.

The tantrum was a rare case of Paul losing his temper on live TV, which hes made almost a second home as hes sought to build his brand ahead of his expected April 7 presidential launch. But his famed accessibility hes willing to submit to most Capitol Hill hallway interviews and even impromptu interviews on airplanes; hell hop on the phone with a junior reporter and talk to cable shouters from Bill Maher to Bill OReilly masks a relationship with the media that is anything but friendly. Reporters who cover Paul have called him thin-skinned, sensitive, wary and prickly. Others say he and his team will blame the media for his own mistakes, at some points freezing out reporters for perceived slights.

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Rand Paul and the media: No love story