Naming my greatest fear, because then I’ll have to admit it, won’t I?
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, February 2024 source ↗
What is your greatest fear?
Question
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Failure & regret
Question
What would you like to be remembered for?
Death & what remains
Question
What is the worst job you have done?
Craft & work
Question
Which living person do you most admire, and why?
Values & belief
Question
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Failure & regret
Question
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Values & belief
Originally asked
Vanity Fair, to its interview subject, The Proust Questionnaire
The exact prompt is fixed in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire and independently sustained in The Guardian's The Q&A over multiple decades.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
Sheer drops, like a precipice.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 April 2023 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 255 →Losing my husband. We are properly codependent.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 8 November 2025 source ↗
As an Italian, tinned spaghetti. As a child, I was once served it at someone’s house. It was quite frightening.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 18 July 2026 source ↗
Incapacitation.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, February 2017 source ↗
More from Bruno Tonioli
View profile →Do you have 10 pages? Once, I was dancing in a costume that was like a corset. During a move, the corset ripped and exploded, and I had to carry on doing the number practically in my jockstrap.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 April 2023 source ↗
That I did everything I had to and I never gave up!
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 April 2023 source ↗
I had to choreograph dancing cows for a commercial. I had to superimpose footage of dancing legs – some were mine – on to the cow. It was bonkers.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 April 2023 source ↗
Oprah Winfrey. Considering the cards she was dealt at birth, what she has achieved is quite something.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 April 2023 source ↗
Growing up as a gay boy in a small town, you get used to people saying bad things pretty quickly.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 April 2023 source ↗
Meanness and lying.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 April 2023 source ↗
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