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 ↗
The question
When were you most embarrassed?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 ↗
The very first day that I was filming Top Gear, for which I was so unqualified because I’d only ever driven a Fiat Uno. I got into a DB7 Vantage Volante outside the Aston Martin factory, put my foot on the accelerator and bunny-hopped across the gravel because I’d forgotten to take the handbrake off.
Shitting myself in New York last November. I was wearing cream trousers. We were going to see my son Matty and his band, the 1975, at Madison Square Garden, and I was walking through the streets, enjoying the sunshine, pretending I was in some kind of video – throwing my hat into the New York sky like Mary Tyler Moore. I saw a couple of people turn and look at me. Now, although I’m not famous in New York, whenever Matty’s there I do get recognised as his mum, so I’m smiling and waving at them. I went back to the hotel room and bent over to get something out of the suitcase, and my husband said: “Do you realise you’ve shat yourself?”
Bumping into my male boss at a nudist beach.
My paso doble on Strictly Come Dancing would be hard to beat.
Procrastination.
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.
Runway 27R at Heathrow.
Well, I’m not too happy about snakes. I also hate sand. It’s very inconvenient.
“What makes you think you are so special?”
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.
Rita Wilson, Bryan Adams, Shaznay Lewis, Olly Alexander, Richard Coles, Michael Ball
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