Page 16 | Famous people you thought would be nice, but were tw*ts?

CoffeeCantata · 22/07/2025 22:19

Middlemarch123 · 22/07/2025 22:12

Met Peter Davison when he was Dr Who in the eighties, booked him for PR when I worked in the industry. Had a huge crush on him since his Tristan days in All Creatures Great and Small (the original series). He was charm personified, unassuming and very genuine.

Met Bradley Walsh socially when he regularly visited family near where I lived at the time. Just lovely, very natural.

My best friend used to work with Vanessa Phelps in the 80s, and she was an absolute nightmare.

Nice to know about Bradley Wallsh!

JustGoClickLikeALightSwitch · 22/07/2025 22:20

Pro Green was well known, mainly because everyone stopped to chat to his dog and would realise later who the human attached was.

This was exactly my experience with him, outside Brockley Station ~10 years ago. He was lovely and the dog (Arthur?) was gorgeous.

softlyfallsthesnow · 22/07/2025 22:21

tombombaclot · 22/07/2025 21:56

Not a twat but met Jonathan Ross briefly at my workplace when I was a teenager, he was lovely.

DS met him at a comic convention and he was really nice. Complimented DS on his T shirt which made his day.

Eric1964 · 22/07/2025 22:23

ByLimeAnt · 22/07/2025 19:45

Lee Evans, very polite.

I was very far down the same bill as him in the early 90s at the beginning of my stand-up comedy career.; he didn't say much but was friendly, polite and encouraging, and it was a thrill to meet him. Later, I worked with Lee's support act and went to see them both. We went back to the hotel and when Lee arrived, he went straight to his room to write: very dedicated to his art.

DevonDonnie · 22/07/2025 22:24

Oh and I often walk past (so not meet) Helena bonham carter and Ricky gervais in Hampstead.

Crossaintqueen · 22/07/2025 22:25

FleurDeFleur · 22/07/2025 16:14

Excellent points, I was about to say the same. Imagine if you had to present yourself in a perfect, positive and charming way every time you left the house, no matter what you felt like, or had to do.
Also - I met Alan Rickman and he was kind and funny!

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I am so incredibly jealous of all of those who have met Alan.

KimberleyClark · 22/07/2025 22:25

Harry Kane was lovely (he was picking his dog up from the vet!).

He does come across as really unassuming!

CoffeeCantata · 22/07/2025 22:25

girljulian · 22/07/2025 22:00

Alas, it’s well known among people who work in the theatre world that Michael Sheen is an absolute nightmare.

personally: Emma Watson. No understatement to say I hated her, and I didn’t meet her as “a celeb” either. This was when she was doing her year “abroad” in Oxford (her home town, actually…). She was an up-herself, arrogant posh bitch.

I confess I’ve NEVER warmed to Emma W. I feel better now you’ve said this..

I get hyper-competitive, very superior, narcissistic vibes from all the interviews I’ve seen, but felt guilty about thinking that!

Cinaferna · 22/07/2025 22:29

I was once at a party that was wall-to-wall celebs, standing on my own feeling very out of my element, and Carol Vorderman spotted me and waved and bounced over to have a really friendly chat. It was years ago, so I don't remember what it was about but she was so kind. It stuck in my head and made me think she was a down to earth good'un.

CakeCupboard · 22/07/2025 22:30

weirdoboelady · 22/07/2025 21:56

I'd just like to say how totally amazing Vanessa Feltz was at a local Mind charity do I attended a good few years ago. She made a point of going round and saying hello to absolutely all the service users there - some of whom were visibly 'odd' and even scary looking to someone who didn't work in mental health. I think quite a few people's spirits were lifted that night, including mine to think that someone could be so generous with their time.

My partner (when he worked in customer service at an energy firm many years ago) took a call from Vanessa Feltz and saw the other side of her! Really rude, condescending, tutting and sighing, repeatedly talking over him from the moment the call started, kept saying she didn't have time for this as she was presenting on a radio show later that day, etc. It should have been a simple call - he just needed to get a few bits of straightforward info from her, but she was interrupting him so much while being generally obnoxious that he struggled to get the info. He said that in his >10 years of working there, her call was probably in the top 10 of awkward ones that weren't straight-up complaints!

I haven't 'properly' met any celebrities, but the last famous person I spoke to was Louise Minchin after an event last year where she was doing a talk (during which she came across really well) and book signing. It was obviously a very brief meeting, but she was really lovely. I'd fallen over during the event and cut my face, and she was so sympathetic and nice about it - she probably felt she had to mention it as it had obviously only just happened, and I was looking a bit of a mess 😆on the subject of book talks/signings, I went to an author event including Dorothy Koomson, who was (as all authors there were) really interesting but also absolutely hilarious and brilliant to listen to!

YesTonightJosephine · 22/07/2025 22:31

Here goes :

Kathy BURKE - just lovely, a legend and I just wanted to take her to the pub!
Timothy DALTON - total dream and so very, very charming
Jason DONOVAN - just lovely and very chatty
Kerry GODLIMAN - fabulous and would love to go to the pub with her too
Hugh JACKMAN - oh my, just adorable and he gave me a big kiss!
Toby JONES - an absolute joy
Anne REID - a total delight

Tilda SWINTON - so very, very, very rude ... a complete 'see you next Tuesday' ... did not really surprise me one bit!

nopiesleftinthisvehicle · 22/07/2025 22:32

Steve Coogan is the only named person who Paddy McGuiness slags off in his autobiography. Notable because he's full of praise for everyone else in the public eye.
Never met him, but he got emotional in a documentary about Caroline Ahern, so there must be a heart in him somewhere.😬

Cinaferna · 22/07/2025 22:37

Figcherry · 22/07/2025 21:42

I never met Victoria Wood.
However, I think she was a comedy genius but I never liked her. In Dinnerladies you could see her face, almost smug, when a particular line was delivered.
I also remember on Desert Island Discs she was asked what the trick was in writing comedy, how she went about it.
She was so definite that she wasn’t prepared to share any of her techniques, she really came across as reluctant to give anyone a leg up.
Selfish, imo.

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DH knew her quite well at one time. She told him, 'The weird thing is, everyone thinks I'm nice. I'm not nice. At all.'

I met her through him and when we chatted she was okay, but very quick to put me down and ensure I knew she was better than others. But she had a really miserable childhood so I can't help forgiving her for being so difficult.

Eric1964 · 22/07/2025 22:38

CoffeeCantata · 22/07/2025 21:28

Ah…to be fair to KC, that valet toothpaste story is a bit harsh because he’d injured his arm at the time. I had a thumb injury a couple of years ago and had to get my husband to squeeze toothpaste for me, so I’ll give him a free pass for that one!

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Nothing to do with your post, but I just wanted to compliment you on your excellent username.

Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht!

MamaBobo · 22/07/2025 22:38

I’ve got a degree of sympathy with anyone in the public eye judged on the strength of one interaction on any given day. I know I probably wouldn’t come out of this kind of judgement particularly well. I think some people might be hard to work with or just not easy people…I’m not a very easy person. I think that’s different to being an entitled prat because you’re a bit famous.

I notice that Lorraine Kelly is often mentioned in these threads and not in a good way. OH used to commute to London and regularly sat next to Lorraine on the plane. She was charming to him, natural and unassuming, no side to her.

MsSmartShoes · 22/07/2025 22:38

Timmy Mallet told me to fuck off when I asked for a wacawave. That was horribly disappointing and sobering.

Cinaferna · 22/07/2025 22:39

YesTonightJosephine · 22/07/2025 22:31

Here goes :

Kathy BURKE - just lovely, a legend and I just wanted to take her to the pub!
Timothy DALTON - total dream and so very, very charming
Jason DONOVAN - just lovely and very chatty
Kerry GODLIMAN - fabulous and would love to go to the pub with her too
Hugh JACKMAN - oh my, just adorable and he gave me a big kiss!
Toby JONES - an absolute joy
Anne REID - a total delight

Tilda SWINTON - so very, very, very rude ... a complete 'see you next Tuesday' ... did not really surprise me one bit!

Edited

I'm so glad about Toby Jones. He's one of my favourite actors.

And Kerry Godliman. She comes over as so lovely and unaffected. It's hard to imagine her as a drama queen.

YesTonightJosephine · 22/07/2025 22:45

Oh and HBC too, the lovely but totally batsh*t Helena Bonham Carter ... adorable but mad as a box of frogs ... but in a good way!

nomas · 22/07/2025 22:46

gotellsomeone · 22/07/2025 16:41

Peter Andre.
Met him at a charity event for disabled children when he was with Katie price who brought her son Harvey. He was awful, behaved like a complete child, rude, nasty, desperate for all the attention, and completely uninterested in anyone else when the cameras weren’t on him.
Katie Price on the other hand, who everyone expected to be awful was really lovely, genuinely kind and interested in the event and all the children.
At one point she was speaking and said something about her son not likely the noise of cutlery banging together and he decided she’d pronounced it wrong, really laughed and mocked her, getting really excited about getting other people to laugh and asking her to say it over and over. He kept bringing it back up and just thought it was absolutely hilarious that she’d embarrassed herself when she really hadn’t and he was the only one who should have been embarrassed.

Yep, I can believe that about Peter Andre. He was awful to Katie.

RikkeOfTheLongEye · 22/07/2025 22:46

I realise that I was not really capable of making an independent judgement on this one, but apparently when I was a baby, my parents encountered Enoch Powell whilst they were trying to change my pooy nappy on the boot of their car (seaside day trip and lack of facilities, I understand). He apparently looked utterly disgusted and dripped contempt.

Cinaferna · 22/07/2025 22:46

PyongyangKipperbang · 22/07/2025 22:16

I was a good friend with his cousin, sadly we lost touch when he moved pre mobile phobes, and he said that Neil was never an arshole even in the early days when it is almost expected to be a dickhead until you grow up a bit. Sadly some celebs dont get the memo about that!

Worst one I knew was Letitia Dean. Was doing a PA at a local even my father was managing. He was hands on, did dirty work as well as the whole project management. She knew him by name only. Treated him like absolute dirt when she didnt know who he was, and barely better when she realised it was him who was paying her. She arrived late, left early and my father made sure that she was paid to the minute as luckily the contract specified "by the hour or part therof" and her four hour booking had her there for slightly less than two hours! This was some years ago though during her EE hiatus, one hopes she has improved since then!

I cant tell the story as it isnt mine to tell and it would be very very outing to certain people close to me but Elliot Kennedy is a very kind man. I have no idea what he is like professionally as I am sure he has to be a bit cut throat in his industry but he has shown exceptional kindness and love to people that he didnt need to show that to. Went over and above. I have not actually met him I know that what he did meant a great deal to the relatvies of mine that he did it for.

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A friend of mine used to go out with Neil Tennant. My friend is an incredible unsung-hero type of person. When he got famous, he mentioned them often in interviews as having been so important to him in his early years. I've always liked him for that, for appreciating how remarkable someone is, who will never be famous.

Cinaferna · 22/07/2025 22:49

AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta · 22/07/2025 20:39

I don't think I remember anyone being as friendless in showbiz circles as Cilla. With the exception of Paul O'Grady nobody seemed to like her. I remember years ago watching her win a BAFTA lifetime achievement award, when she went to collect it the applause was lukewarm and POG had to harangue people to stand up.

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DH once got into a lift she was in and she insisted her assistant had to tell him to get out, because she didn't travel in lifts with unknowns. Silly cow. She was famously hated at his place of work.

OtherS · 22/07/2025 22:51

nomas · 22/07/2025 22:46

Yep, I can believe that about Peter Andre. He was awful to Katie.

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Yeah, I think that. Whenever I stumbled on their reality show, he was always being pretty abusive to her. But everyone said he was lovely, and laughed at her. I do wonder if all that's happened to her since has been down to his treatment of her. (Though I don't have much sympathy for her as she's hurt animals. Maybe they're both just crappy people.)

JohnnyLuLus · 22/07/2025 22:52

Moodershewrote · 22/07/2025 14:25

Have you met someone famous and they turned out to be a bit of a twat?

I once met Steve Coogan (who I thought was hilarious as Alan Partridge) who was a sexist, lecherous buffoon IRL.

Share your tales!

I think it's quite well-documented that Coogan is like this. He even knows it himself, if you watch The Trip he plays up his (not very) fictionalised version of himself as being an unpleasant womanising piece of shit. Same in A Cock and Bull story where he also "plays" Steve Coogan.

Cinaferna · 22/07/2025 22:53

HarrietBond · 22/07/2025 20:52

Floella is genuinely one of the best people alive.

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I sat opposite her on the tube once and she caught me recognising who she was and gave me the loveliest smile.