The question
What is the harshest thing anyone has said to you?Originally asked
The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A
A fixed Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.
You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.
“And for you, sir?” It happens a lot.
The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 May 2025 source ↗
“What makes you think you are so special?”
A review of Phèdre said – because I was quite large at the time – Toby Stephens’s Hippolytus needs to get on a StairMaster.
It happened when I was younger, somewhere outside London. We were on bikes, and this older girl pulled up and said something racist that I won’t repeat. I will never forget that, because it was the first time, and I was like, “Oh, I am feeling different from everyone around me right now”.
“Not interested.” Who? Many people.
High-functioning introvert.
Throwing up all over the red velvet seats in the House of Lords on a school trip, aged nine.
When I decided that Mavis Staples was right – I don’t need to despise myself.
Not standing up to bullies.
Nick Cave for his determination to hold a space for public discourse on the deep and difficult and mysterious elements of life.
Not knowing who my family are.
Arlene Phillips, Adam Clayton, Alison Steadman, Paul McKenna, Brandi Carlile, Michael Ball
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