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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask your tenuous claims to fame?

806 replies

GetAGripNigel · 11/01/2026 00:15

The more tenuous the better.

I don’t want any of your “My mum used to clean for a famous pop star” because that turns into pages of tiresome questions and “Oh go on tell us who it is/give us a clue/no I can’t sorry”

I want such tenuous connections that nobody will bother asking follow up questions.

I’ll start.

My dog was Mr Tumble’s dog’s mum.

OP posts:
daveyfish · 12/01/2026 07:07

Plus my daughters have ridden a horse that has been ridden by Princess Anne AND I have slept in a bed that has previously (several years earlier) been slept in by prince William. So many tenuous claims to fame.

daveyfish · 12/01/2026 07:01

I made an orange juice with ice that Gloria hunniford pretended to drink during an episode of wish you were here

Maestoso · 12/01/2026 06:56

I knew a woman who was married to the big cheese at the local barracks. Her eldest son was applying for Eton and she said "don't mention granny in your interview" in a context that meant "granny" was SOMEONE. I have no idea who granny was.

iloveeverykindofcat · 12/01/2026 06:35

Appalonia · 11/01/2026 08:05

Ooh that just reminded me, Nile Rodgers once replied to a tweet I sent, he was v sweet.

( dying to know what the insult was...)

He basically just said an article I wrote was trash and I was a useful idiot/DEI hire/etc.

For a man who preaches rationality and self-control, he's extremely emotional and impulsive 😂

JuniperKeats · 12/01/2026 06:28

I drove the writer Laurie Lee to the station when his cab didn’t arrive at the bookshop signing. He bought me a drink on the platform!

Toogreasyforme · 12/01/2026 05:17

I saw a little white dog in an antiques shop. He had Richard Curtis with him.

HorrorPudding · 12/01/2026 04:57

My ex-boyfriend, who I finished with 37 years ago, had an older sister who was in Malcolm McLaren’s Madame Butterfly video (the one with models sitting about in a steam room!).

Bikergran · 12/01/2026 04:34

Daygloboo · 12/01/2026 01:09

My partner went to a wedding with his then girlfriend. It was her best friend's wedding. At the reception, he was standing outside just having a break and getting some air when a woman came up to him and asked him for a light..He said sorry he didnt smoke .....and then realised he was talking to Lulu..

I was taken out for a treat birthday dinner to what was then a new posh hotel in our city centre. It was ruined by Lulu and her entourage at the next table all screeching their heads off loudly throughout their meal.

Kevinbaconsrealwife · 12/01/2026 03:17

Shedeboodinia · 11/01/2026 11:22

When I was about 15, I was in Leicester square with friends and we saw David Baddiel.
I shouted 'Oi Baddiel' really loudly, he turned around and we all ran and hid in a red phone box.

😂

Bingly23 · 12/01/2026 03:15

25 years ago when I lived in Glasgow, my midwife, close to retirement, said that when she started her career as a healthcare worker in a retirement home one of her patients was an old lady who as a trainee nurse had been one of the people who had helped prepare the Petrie dishes for the first antibiotics developed by Alexander Fleming.
The old lady said Fleming was very understanding when she dropped and broke one by accident- but the matron gave her a right telling off!

berryberi · 12/01/2026 03:09

My daughter is in the same class as a Cranberries member's son.

I used to share a house with the wife of author Donal Ryan, before she met him.

My nephew caddied for actor Aidan Quinn.

Splat92 · 12/01/2026 02:44

My grandmother's cousin was married to Don Bradman.

My SIL's house was used on an episode of Home and Away and you could see a photo of me and DH in the background.

Kevinbaconsrealwife · 12/01/2026 02:44

My mum was friends with the late Chris Rea’s sister and there is a photo of me standing with her at a wedding when I was 8 or 9 ….

OneHundredDays · 12/01/2026 02:21

Someone I used to work with used to be housemates with one of the boy band Five.

My mum did the flowers for Dudley Moore's mum's funeral.

My dad can be seen in the background of an episode of Minder. Not as an extra - just genuinely passing by. He was a carpet filter at the time and he'd just undone the top straps of his knee pads so that the pads were flapping as he walked.

My dd is in the same class as the ds of the most recent Apprentice winner.

When we were looking to buy our first home we viewed a gorgeous flat on a Saturday morning that was full of sleeping people and empty bottles. Turned out it was owned by Jade Goody and rented by a showbiz/gossip journalist. We very nearly bought it but ultimately decided on a modest house rather than a fancy flat so we wouldn't outgrow it.

middlesqueezed · 12/01/2026 02:14

I once went in a car driven by a guy who had given a lift to Harry Styles. Our bums might have sat in the same place.

MisterT373 · 12/01/2026 02:00

EmiliaRuusuvuori · 11/01/2026 01:15

I served the actress Georgina Hale once, when she was appearing in panto at our local theatre.

I used to deliver Elvis Costello's & Barry Norman's post

CurtsyFriends · 12/01/2026 01:56

I had cocktails with Eggsy from Goldie Lookin Chain 20yrs ago. I didn’t know anything about him or his music at the time, and the same applies now lol.

cakedup · 12/01/2026 01:53

My ex FIL had a mental health disorder and was sectioned. When ex dh and i went to visit him, we met Adam Ant who had also been sectioned at the time. FIL gave Adam Ant dh's phone number so for a while he would call dh regularly, asking him to arrange a gig at wembley for him.

Daygloboo · 12/01/2026 01:27

EnoughPlayingNice · 12/01/2026 01:22

A lot of these seem to involve meeting actually famous people. Not sure they count. Here's a properly tenuous one.

My ex boyfriend's ex girlfriend had a horse that mated with the stallion that was, at the time, in the Lloyd's bank advert. I never met either of the horses.

Good one. Proper tenuous !

WearyAuldWumman · 12/01/2026 01:26

Oh, oh! Remembered another.

When my husband was in the Scots Greys, he was an extra in the wartime escape film, The One that Got Away.

He's in the line of silhouetted soldiers who come over the brow of a hill, hunting for an escaped German POW.

EnoughPlayingNice · 12/01/2026 01:22

A lot of these seem to involve meeting actually famous people. Not sure they count. Here's a properly tenuous one.

My ex boyfriend's ex girlfriend had a horse that mated with the stallion that was, at the time, in the Lloyd's bank advert. I never met either of the horses.

AGirlCalledJohnny · 12/01/2026 01:21

OwlBeThere · 11/01/2026 14:14

I love this thread!

My ex-stepfather was an extra in a film when he was a child. I believe it was a war film, but I can’t remember what it was called.

My postman as a kid had a son who went to star in an American TV series called Constantine.

OMG, MATT RYAN?!?! I loved that show, was devo when they cancelled it. I thought it was amazing in the role (and still hold hope in my cynical heart he will get a season 2)

WhyAreWeLikeThis · 12/01/2026 01:15

I appeared in a German textbook. I’m not German

Marmaladelover · 12/01/2026 01:10

I was at Sheffield Uni in 1985 when Dennis Taylor won the world snooker championships . During the final’s early evening break he went to evening mass at the cathedral round the corner. My friends and I were in the pew behind . One of my friends shook his hand at the sign of peace and I went up to communion right behind him.

He went back to win the final after. I always thought - Divine Intervention!

Daygloboo · 12/01/2026 01:09

GetAGripNigel · 11/01/2026 00:15

The more tenuous the better.

I don’t want any of your “My mum used to clean for a famous pop star” because that turns into pages of tiresome questions and “Oh go on tell us who it is/give us a clue/no I can’t sorry”

I want such tenuous connections that nobody will bother asking follow up questions.

I’ll start.

My dog was Mr Tumble’s dog’s mum.

My partner went to a wedding with his then girlfriend. It was her best friend's wedding. At the reception, he was standing outside just having a break and getting some air when a woman came up to him and asked him for a light..He said sorry he didnt smoke .....and then realised he was talking to Lulu..

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