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Famous People Who Are Tits.

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I think we did this a few years ago in the old place, but there has been a lot of newbies join since then so we may get some new ones. I was in convo with an Afterworder earlier today on a completely unrelated topic when I was reminded of this story.
My chum Ian regularly works for the Scottish Professional Golfer’s Association (SPGA) at the Scottish Open and also the (British) Open when it is held in Scotland. They work for sod all but get to *mingle* and see some free golf. They have a good time. One year the Open was at Carnoustie, and Ian was looking after the VIP car park. He was manning the barrier type thing when up rolls Colin Montgomerie in his car. Now my chum (who I should add was then in his 40’s and a fairly wealthy man, he just loved this wee sideline he had) was well aware of who the driver was, but he asked the Scotsman anyway “Name?”
Montgomerie rolled down the car window and said “Colin Fucking Montgomerie.” Ian made a great palaver of looking through the list of accredited names on his A4 clipboard for a minute or two, clucking his tongue and sagely shaking his head and said “Nobody on here with that name, mate. Drive on please.” and walked away. Montgomerie went apeshit, and as Monty was well known for his consistent abrasive, offhand ways with the hired help, Ian was given a heroes welcome in the Staff Tent later that day.
So who have YOU (or your friend) encountered that is/was famous in their chosen field, but turned out to be a complete and utter twunt? That 70’s sitcom star with the jolly persona a miserable git in real life? Or maybe you know the opposite…. perhaps that nice Mr Innes is REALLY nice Mr Innes.
Over to you.

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Comments

  2. Dave Stewart out of the Eurythmics seemed a little pee’d off when I asked for his surname once. I got a little scarcastic laugh from him as he said ‘Stewart’. I thought it was him, but he was shorter than I expected, so I wanted to be on the safe side. That’s all he did though, so it would be unfair to call him a tit. Just the only time anyone famous has been anything other than normal when I have spoken to them.

    Actually no, I forgot about Peter Beagrie, who was an arse when I asked him whether he was a player when I was taking a little lad round the room at the Sheffield United open day one season. He was affronted because he was the ‘star’ player and I didn’t recognise him and told me so. Arse!

    I could list 40 or 50 that have been nice and (relatively) normal, including many who were lovely, when I have met them though, so it’s a very low hit rate of tits, which is reassuring.

  3. Many senior academics think they are Steven Hawking when they are closer to David Icke. Richard Dawkins is, guess what, a self-absorbed rude elitist with no time for starstruck students. Indifference to anyone’s fame is the way to go.

    • However, when Paul Davies spent some time at Adelaide University back in the early 90s, he dropped by the printing department to get some business cards printed and couldn’t have been nicer.

    • Another exception would be Prof. Brian Cox. He did a Manchester Alumni / British Council talk here in Singapore last year (which was fantastic) and happily mingled with the audience afterwards at the buffet. My then 15year old son asked him a simple question and he spent a good 10 minutes talking to him. He even entertained my question on the D’Ream reunion…

      Very approachable and couldn’t have been nicer.

    • My son knows ex open winner Paul Lawrie…off piste he is a genuine, nice guy… on the job, he is single minded and focused, therefore his reputation for surliness?

  5. It’s wrong to speak ill of the dead but Paul Daniels – what a tit! Some years ago my friend and his wife attended a show at the Barbican in London and afterwards tried to navigate the labyrinth-like car park complex to retrieve their car. Similarly perplexed by the system were another couple, Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee. They entered the lift and my friend offered some generic banter along the lines of how tricky it is to work out where to go. No silly high voices, no “I bet you wish you had your magic wand” or “I like this car park – not a lot!!!” – none of the kind of things I would say. He’s far more dignified.

    He was responded to with silence and a keen need not to engage in any way, no matter how small. Both couples parted, looking for respective parking spaces. A few minutes later, my friends decided that perhaps they should go back to the lift – and they get in. Presently the door opens at another floor. It’s Daniels and McGee! “Oh for fucks sake!” He shouts on seeing them and enters the lift. No humour, no interaction. The two couples part again and my friend offers some direct advice to Daniels over his general behaviour.

    • i met PD and the lovely DM once and I can report that he and indeed she, was civil, friendly and argh, amusing. This was rather disappointing as I had always previously thought of him as being, as described in VIz, ‘a baaldy, lirrul twat from Middlesborough.’
      Perhaps he was just having a good day.

    • In the interest of balance, there’s a famous story of Paul Daniels doing a charity gig for no fee, but there being a very small crowd due to some publicity foul-up… rather than flounce off in a huff, he does a great full performance, and afterwards gives a donation to the charity to the value of what a full-house would have raised…

  7. John Cale was pissed off and not at all friendly when I asked him to sign a copy of VU and Nico as well as the autobiography he was flogging. But sign it he did and a friendly Cale would probably have perplexed me more.

  8. As I’ve said before, Miranda Richardson told a very starstruck 11-year-old me to piss off when I approached her for an autograph in 1989. I was so crushed.

  9. I did a radio phone interview with Howard Jones (their idea, not mine) to help him promote his local gig and he was a tit of the first order – clearly thought that doing the whole thing was beneath him. A similar chat with Paul Young was completely the opposite – top bloke all round!

    • There was a longish interview with Howard Jones on Swedish TV a couple of years ago, and I must say he came over as an absolute tit.
      From the way he described his career and his work, he seemed to believe that he was a more significant person in the history of music than Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix and J.S. Bach rolled into one.

  10. Just the other day a mate told me that Sting threatened to have him fired off a tour for the heinous crime of asking him to sign a program (it was for someone else). Summers and Copeland did it, no problem but Sting refused. He may have wondered later why some of the lights were just slightly in his eyes during the gig.
    On a more positive note, I recently encountered Chris Moyles who was as nice as Nicey McNiceface on a particularly nice day.

  11. Colin Fucking Montgomery? Everyone knows his name is Jessie. Big girls blouse.

    Recently saw Monty Don at a Gardeners World show – my wife thinks he is a genuinely nice person. The two ladies who tried and failed to get his autograph may think otherwise.

    • In my bookselling days I would often ask reps if an author they were touting was available for signings in the shop. Only twice was I ever told, ‘Trust me, you don’t want him.’ One was George Best, the other was Monty Don.

    • I suspect it doesn’t take much to make Monty angry.
      Even spelling his surname wrongly (It’s “Montgomerie”, not “Montgomery”) is likely to make the former Ryder Cup Captain incandescent with rage!

  13. Whilst working for a ‘too large to fail’ bank in the mid-90s, we hired (at considerable expense) Bruce Forsyth to present an award ceremony for us at the V&A. He was horrific – complete diva, horrible to everybody.
    We also used to employ the services of Jeremy Paxman to present our financial results, and he was the complete opposite to Forsyth – spoke to everybody as equals, laughed, took interest in what he was there to do.

  14. When I met Phill Jupitus outside a local arts centre (he was doing a DJ set and part-fronting The Blockheads) he was fine. When a friend met him in the kitchen where they’d both been sequestered at a PTA event apparently the only four words he said were “Don’t talk to me”. Mind you, I don’t like washing up much either.

  15. I understand that former “Shoestring” actor Trevor Eve is the grumpiest, nastiest, tittiest tit of the whole lot of tits there are to be had out there. So a couple of my friends have told me. No personal experience.

  18. @daftlimmy on Twitter makes me laugh every time someone dies by saying “Had the pleasure of meeting [X] at a charity do once. S/he was surprisingly down to earth, and VERY funny!”

    He’s done it for everyone from Cilla to Bowie to Fidel Castro to Ian Brady to Scotland. And the best part is that news outlets often report it in their obit pieces – “Comedian Limmy tweeted, “…””

  20. I´m guessing most famous people can be grumpy but a lot are not. My son is a booking agent and reliably informs me that, in general, they are pretty good and the personality of the celeb/s is usually reflected in their crew. Recent inductees into the “really nice people, really nice crew” hall of fame include John Grant, Father John Misty and Solange – who due to flight issues arrived late in Oslo, put her makeup on in the van on the way from the airport and ran straight onstage without any warmup. No tantrums, just got on with it, and gave the performance of the festival.

    • I met John Grant after a gig and he is an absolute gent. The lady in front of me bought the Queen of Denmark on vinyl for him to sign, said how her son was so inspired by it, and he spent ages talking to her and wrote an essay (or so it seemed) on the cover. He was lovely with me too, and happy to to chat away to a star struck fan. On the other hand, I recently encountered Teddy Thompson, who’s work I love, and he scrawled his ‘name’ on a CD with barely a recognition that I was there. He was grumpy during the show too – moaned about record sales a lot…..!

      • I too have met TT.

        He put up with some grace a visitation from my friend immediately post gig. A small, intimate venue in Charlottesville Virginia. Susan (my friend) had entered her “fuck the social niceties, just say it” stage of cancer, and barged through the teeny curtain dividing star from adoring fans. She then harangued him about not being in his Dad’s shadow and how good he is in his own merit. I’m doing the comedy sidekick thing of mouthing apologies and tugging her arm to c’mon and let the man go. He was nothing but pleasant; frankly I’d have lost my temper.

        Also saw him at Jammin’ Java where he was very self deprecating and his statements were delivered with just enough wry smile that everyone knew not to take him too seriously.

    • I actually have met Mr. Leitch and he was very nice – he did a signing after a gig in Exeter a couple of years ago and he chatted and I got a picture with him and everything. The show was a bit…er….self congratulatory would be a way of putting it, but he didn’t come over as the complete tit of reputation.

        • I’ve met ‘Aussie bad boy’ Nick Kyrgios a few times and can report he’s actually an interesting, self-effacing young bloke, whose biggest problem is he doesn’t much like tennis.
          A certain denizen of this parish would doubtless be gratified to know that, like him, he’s a mad keen supporter of the perpetually rubbish North Melbourne Australian Rules Football team.

          • I have a certain sympathy for people like Kyrgios (not necessarily him – he might be a dick) – probably he showed early promise, loved tennis, worked really hard, got to nearly the top – and discovered he now hates his job. Or at least doesn’t enjoy it. But it is his job, and he is probably not skilled in anything else. He is good enough to coast through and earn millions but is already dreaming of retirement.

            It happens to many of us, just at a lower level – I know lawyers who hate lawyering, dentists who hate dentistry…. but it pays the bills, and you don’t have the media laying into you for not understanding how lucky you are.

  22. Don’t we want some people to be pricks because we don’t like them on the telly or whatever? Imagine if The Mumfords moved in next door* and were likeable chaps who never left their bins out too long or had their telly on too loud. One’s brain would simply be crushed with the weight of the cognitive dissonance.

    (*because they all live together, right?)

  23. I met Roy Thomas Baker once.

    All he talked about was how much money he had, and how Cheap Trick liked to party.

    Both of which he’d obviously had far too much of.

    A very unappealing, full-of-himself person. Has he done anything else since Queen?

  24. I met a very grumpy God once, and asked why he seemed to be having such a bad day, as he’d flatly ignored my request for an autograph on my ‘Westminster Carols At Christmas’ programme. “Are you kidding?” he said, “Look at all those bloody stupid humans; for one thing they’re still breeding like rabbits despite my having given them sufficient intelligence to work out that the little planet isn’t getting any bigger, and for another thing, they are always bloody asking me to fucking well intervene. How long will it take them to realise I don’t give a shit anymore? I’m so bored with them.”
    “I see what you mean” I answered, “fair enough.” “Don’t s’pose you’d just sign this quickly, would you, any chance?” Bastard turned me into a pillar of salt.

    • Ross Noble claims that whenever he stays in a hotel he writes “All the best, God” on the inside front page of the Gideon’s Bible. You’d think the omniscient one would have made the effort to sign a few copies himself, seeing as it’s his Word and all, but no, he relies on off-duty comedians to do the hard graft for him.

      • He’s a bit of a tightwad, that Almighty.
        All them apostles were on zero-hours contracts too.
        Interships, he told ’em.

        At least now Ross Noble can say on his CV that he’s Doing God’s Work.

        • And pay? Don’t talk to me about a pay. I said to him once, I said, look at this robe, I said, it’s more patches than fabric now. You know what he says to to me? He says, ‘Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.’ That’s all well and good for the lilies, I said, but they’re not the ones with half of Jerusalem pointing at their meat and two veg and giggling, I said.

            • Yes I have never liked all that stuff (paraphrasing here) “see how God provides, even for the sparrows – do you think he’d forget you?” .

              We have the clearest of crystal-clear evidence in front of our own eyes that this, in particular, is bollocks. Moreover, the notion that such a predicament happens to non-believers – making the starving, homeless and uneducated responsible for their own poverty due to their own heathen ways.

  28. I have observed, but not actually met, Rory McGrath on two separate occasions. Both times he was complaining loudly in a ‘do you know who I am?’ style. Looked like an arse to me.

    • I went to a recording of QI once, a good few years ago. McGrath was on it, and was absolutely bloody insufferable – a desperate know-it-all, *straining* to mention his time at Cambridge any opportunity he got, BWAH HA HA-ing at his own jokes like a golf-club bar made flesh. I got the impression he’s massively insecure about his contemporaries all having surpassed him, and if he weren’t such a huge bellend you’d feel quite sorry for him.

      The rest of the panel tried very hard to be patient, but eye-rolls and tuts were increasingly apparent over the couple of hours or so that they were filming. Until at one point towards the end of the taping, Stephen Fry passed a weary hand across his brow and said “Rory, do shut the fuck up, there’s a dear.”

      There was unanimous applause.

      (When the edited episode went out, they managed to make him look just about bearable. Which just goes to show how good at their jobs editors are.)

  30. I’m sure I’ve told this before on here.

    Mid-90s I was on a charity events team with Mary Archer and my pal (who booked for the Cambridge Corn Exchange). We wanted to raise funds for the Arts Theatre renovation.

    Griff Rhys Jones was booked for an hour’s chat in the Arts Cinema on a Sunday morning. I did the sound. He was very funny. Afterwards, there was a back-stage line-up. He got along to me.

    Mary Archer: “This is Steve, he did the sound for you today”
    Me: “Have you ever bought a gramophone?”
    GRS: “Oh, DO FUCK OFF”.

    At which point GRS left the building.

  33. When I worked on a magazine in Dubai about ten years ago I was sent to interview Chris Tarrant, who was in town as the chief tit of the Lord Taverners cricket club or something. I had to attend a dinner, where he was the “star” guest and his flunkey told me to grab him afterwards for a chat. When I finally got to introduce myself, he turned a very flushed face to me and blurted “Oh you’re English? I thought you were one of the bloody natives!” (I’m Asian). Twunt.

  34. Years ago I was doing my PADI Level 2 Certificate (scuba diving thing) in Turkey.

    Amazed to find Chris Eccleston on the same boat, he was doing his first dive. He had just finished Doctor Who but that meant of course nothing to the Turkish instructors who kept asking him if he was famous.

    I expected him to go off on one but he couldn’t have been nicer. Stayed in the bar later for a few beers, signed autographs for anyone who asked and happily posed for photos.

    A big Northern Soul fan as well

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