Marina Abramović
Performance artist
Pretending I’m happy when I’m not.
Which moment embarrassed you most?
Question
What is your greatest fear?
Identity & self
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Question
What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?
Failure & regret
Question
What keeps you awake at night?
Daily life
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Money & investment
Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A verbatim recurring question in The Guardian's Q&A series.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
I once threw up on the shoes of one of my vocal heroes, the Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan. He sent me home in a taxi with a towel.
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 July 2024 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 122 →I don’t get embarrassed.
Chiwetel Ejiofor
English actor
Being torn to shreds by a very elderly woman for driving badly on the Isle of Man, maybe 15 years ago. She stopped in the middle of the road and really let me have it.
Forty-eight hours after giving birth, I sent a picture that someone had sent me of their baby to a WhatsApp group, thinking it was my son (they kind of looked similar). Mortifying.
More from Bruce Dickinson
View profile →Well, I’m not too happy about snakes. I also hate sand. It’s very inconvenient.
Procrastination.
“What makes you think you are so special?”
Runway 27R at Heathrow.
I’ve been asleep at the wheel on the M11, had an engine fire over the Atlantic in a light aircraft, driven unprotected through an enemy firing zone to do a gig in wartime Sarajevo – the list goes on and on. But I did have stage 3 throat cancer and was cured by some fantastic UK medics.
A Cessna Golden Eagle eight-seater aircraft. I flew it across the Atlantic both ways and did two US tours and two European tours in it. I finally sold it and got a job as an airline pilot in which I was paid to fly, rather than the other way round.
More on failure & regret
- What has been your biggest disappointment? 366 answers
- Who most deserves an apology from you, and why? 209 answers
- If you could edit your past, what would you change? 203 answers
- What is the worst thing anyone has said to you? 122 answers
- How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure? 63 answers
- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 36 answers
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