Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you click on the links and make a purchase, I will receive a small amount of commission. Why is it so much fun to read about the lives of celebrities? My friend J is in love with a celebrity. She feels the same ups and downs everybody does when they’re in love, but she has to stand back and watch while tabloids, stalkers and millions of tweeters tear his private life to shreds. Harsh.
My initial plan for the sequel to The Tangled Web was to write about the next stage of Flic’s life, when she is an investigative celebrity photographer (in other words, she paps reality TV stars) but I lost enthusiasm for that once I started to really think about it. Flic was generally unlikable before. Why would her new life make her any more likeable? Who would want to read about that?
Then I started to think about my own encounters with celebrities. Here are some of the encounters I’ve had with minor celebs.
- I shared a toilet with a Spanish flamenco dancer and TV star. Can’t remember her name.
- I shared a lift with the guy who puts his hand up Basil Brush’s arse and shouted “Boom Boom Basil!” as he was leaving.
- I was waiting to cross the road in Monte Carlo and David Coulthard drove past me.
- Berni Flint asked me a question at one of his stand-up shows (ask your parents)
- Leapy Lee said excuse me to me when I bumped into him in a hotel (ask your grandparents)
- The producer of my favourite radio show sent me a DM on Twitter after I tweeted about putting my car into the garage. I sent him a public reply. I don’t care who you are, you don’t DM me unless you know me. It’s effing rude.
- I was standing outside Fopp in Glasgow, and Fran Healy walked past me.
- I sat at the table behind the woman who played Sadie in Family Affairs in a restaurant (I know, as celebrity encounters go, this was really poor).
- I was in the front row at a gig by one of my favourite ska bands and the bass player winked at me, smiled at me and was grinding his hips in my direction all through the show. True story. And quite awkward since my husband was standing right beside me.
- I was queuing to get into a Reel Big Fish gig in Glasgow and realised just as I was going inside that the guy standing at the door having a cigarette was only Brian bloody Klemm! I may or may not have swooned. How embarrassing.
- I met Alex Salmond at a book signing. We were second last to meet him. He had a very sore hand.
- I
stalkedtracked down three members of Suburban Legends at a Reel Big Fish gig when they were supporting and I got my picture taken with all of them. Although I was too shy to have proper conversations with any of them. - I met Mr. Maker at Butlins.
- I met Rastamouse when he was switching on the Christmas lights at Silverburn. Highlight of my life!
- Then there was the time I spent a morning following Peter Andre around Glasgow. That is worthy of a whole blog post of its own, I assure you.
Can I share any scandals? It depends on what you call scandal…see if you can guess who these celebrities are. There are no A-listers here. No Brad Pitts or George Clooneys. But you might work out who they are.
- A guy I’d never heard of from a band I barely knew followed me on Twitter and for a while, we were pretty good Twitter-friends. It even spilled over into Facebook until his band did a gig in Glasgow and he asked me if I knew where he could get drugs for after the gig. Pretty soon after that, I had a Facebook cull and he didn’t make the cut.
- I once visited the home of one of Scotland’s most famous comedians, and sat at his kitchen table. He had a broken ankle at the time and hobbled around after me, serving me drinks and chocolates. The real shocker was, he’s not the coarse drunkard he is portrayed as on TV. The best word I can think of to describe him is eloquent.
- My step-son was standing in line waiting to use a portaloo at a festival. He turned around and who should be standing behind him, also queuing up for a pee, but the most shocking industrial metal star of our generation. He chatted to my step-son and apparently he was actually a very nice man.
- Back in my Torquay days, I was walking along the seafront one Friday afternoon and almost got knocked down by a cheesy musical double act, once described as the UK’s answer to Milli Vanilli (by my Dad). Their reaction to this? They shouted “woohoo” and drove on. Charming.
- When I was in my late teens, my friend and I were approached by an English TV presenter at a Corrs gig and he asked if he could interview us. We reluctantly said yes, although we weren’t sure why he had asked us. He was a total creep. Said TV presenter was clearly giving my friend the – ahem – glad eye. At the time he was involved with a model/TV presenter and the two of them are now married and he has, during his marriage, been involved in two infidelity scandals. His creepy co-presenter, who was a has-been even then, stood there smiling at me and my friend in a really leery way. A few years later, the co-presenter was on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. I voted for him every night to do the trials.
Do you have any scandal to share? (Please do not include names when sharing unflattering details. It’s more fun if you just hint at who you mean and we all have to guess!)
Advertisements
Hmm, well I had a ding dong with a certain F1 racing driver's race engineer, if that's a claim to fame…
Also one of my pals from uni is a wardrobe person for TV and has worked on Torchwood and Dr Who – she gave me a signed picture of David Tennant!