Have you met a celebrity villain?

[pawsies]

Someone that is controversial in the media or comes across unpleasant on TV or whatever?

What were they like in real life?

AIBU to think there might be some surprises and some of them will be a persona on TV or whatever?

@Beeziekn33ze your friend is either lying or betraying a confidentiality agreement he’ll have to have signed to work there. And I doubt anyone who really worked with them would say something like that as their job is to be professional and help these young ppl rehabilitate.

Some time ago I read on an airline crew forum that Cilly Black was horrendous. She always insisted on the same seat and crew would be told by her assistant 'you do not speak to Ms Black, you will only speak to Ms Black if she speaks to you' and other totally ridiculous nonsense.

There were also some great posts about z listers who did not want to queue and used the old 'do you know who I am' line. How they didn't cringe with embarrassment at themselves I don't know. One man did this and the crew member said in a loud voice 'Can anyone help? This man doesn't know who he is!' He slunk back to his place in the queue and how she didn't laugh her head off I'll never know,

I've spent time with Sandi Toksvig on two occasions (the first time was for a couple of hours through work and 2nd time was briefly and in a personal setting) and on both occasions she was nice, warm and friendly. I'm just an ordinary woman, not a celeb or anything, and she was perfectly pleasant to me. This was within the past ten years.

Sorry, @Judashascomeintosomemoney. It was a long time ago and to be fair our school's head at the time had behaved appallingly in various ways (long, long story), but two wrongs don't make a right. He does have a glorious singing voice, I can't deny that!

I'm going to add to the Jimmy Savile stories. I completely forgot about this encounter until his crimes came to light once he'd died.

I met him when I was 16 in 1989. He was touring Co-op supermarkets as part of some charity run thing and the branch I worked in was on his itinerary.
He and a load of senior high-ups swept in for photos etc. He spied me and another teenager on duty as he left. He eyed both of us up and down while shaking our hands and holding on to them longer than necessary.

This is not hindsight, but he gave off weird vibes and neither me or the other girl could put our fingers on why at the time - we just knew we wanted to wash our hands after he'd left.

Also met jimmy saville briefly as a child. He was horrible to us. Adults did not believe us

@MarieFromStTropez

Not sure if they count as celebrity villains, but I worked for the Bin Laden family. Lovely people. Kind, compassionate, educated and the complete antithesis of what you’d expect.

Crikey! Tell us more. This is the post that has made me sit up and take notice.

More so than people trotting out stories about notorious villains Clive James, Michael Palin and Bryan Adams. Boo hiss.

I am only surprised that we haven’t had the usual rash of “I metJoanna Lumley and she was delightful” posts on threads labelled, ‘tell me about horrible celebrities’ or ‘have you met a celebrity villain’.

Katie Price but in her Jordan days. She was as you’d expect really, rude and a bit obnoxious but she’d been booked at this event as ‘Jordan’ so maybe a persona thing. Was complaining of being cold so was loaned a hoodie that belonged to my friend who was working there, left without returning it.

Ryan Giggs - so rude and out of order to the bar staff, vile man.

I’ve read a few bad things about Gok Wan including on this thread but my sister met him and he was lovely apparently, she’s not one to get star struck and would definitely have said if he’d been rude.

My mum met Paul Daniels in a restaurant, very normal local restaurant in our not even slightly celeb type town and apparently he was going round all the tables and trying to do a ‘turn’ for everyone, taking mobiles off people to speak to who was on the other end of the phone like ‘yes it’s ME’ type thing and my mum was just annoyed as she wanted to eat her prawns in peace 😂

Not a villain or even much of a celebrity but I was out with a couple of friends and we’d managed to talk our way into the supposed ‘vip’ bit of this bar - not because of any desire to be vips but because there were places to sit in there and no seats elsewhere. Jamie Theakston came in with a woman, not the one he was supposedly dating at the time I think he was meant to be with a model. He ordered drinks to their table. Someone approached to ask for a photo or autograph or something and he quite sneeringly dismissed them which was a bit mean but fair enough I suppose if he didn’t want to be disturbed. But I’m hen when he came to leave the waiter who had been doing table service asked for payment and he had a real ‘don’t you know who I am’ moment like he was really astonished to be asked to pay for his drinks. A manager was called over and said it was fine they were of course on the house. All very odd.

Another Jimmy Saville one

He came to my house when I was 5. My parents ran a charity entertainment business heavily involved with children with disabilities.

Saville wanted to become a patron for the business. My mum took an instant dislike said no and got him out of the house as soon as possible. What I remember most was he didn’t even get a cup of tea!

Theresa May tarmacked my drive and tried to overcharge me. I wasn’t having that. I shook my fist and the last I saw she was running off through a field of corn.

@DoverSoul his QC is NSIT too (in fact young female lawyers are warned not to even sit next to him at a conference table). How I laughed (not) when he described AS in less than savory terms. A very senior Scottish lawyer involved in Sectarianism. They all use the Saunas. The Police know (and many of them do too) Horrible stuff going on in Scotland atm. Not 'celebrities' tho' (though they behave like they are!)

@GrannyWeatherwaxsHatpin he only has one grown up daughter.

My mum met Paul Daniels in a restaurant, very normal local restaurant in our not even slightly celeb type town and apparently he was going round all the tables and trying to do a ‘turn’ for everyone, taking mobiles off people to speak to who was on the other end of the phone like ‘yes it’s ME’ type thing and my mum was just annoyed as she wanted to eat her prawns in peace 😂
Haha!! I’d hate that! Was poor Debbie left at their table on her own or did she get in on the act?! 🤣

@Branleuse

"how come both women complaining about Sandi Toksvig dont even know the name of the show theyre talking about?"

Actually, the show was called 'Number 73', but I lived at a number 74 at the time, so have always referred to it as that mentally. My apologies. Yet @Hailtomyteeth knew which programme I was talking about, so... does it really matter?

"When you say Vile woman, what do you mean? Did she actually do something to you, or do you mean she wasnt as maternal as your fantasy of her was?"

I didn't have any illusions towards her being maternal. She wasn't maternal in the show, for a start, and she isn't in real life. When I say "vile woman", I mean she pushed her way through a crowd of autograph seekers - many of them young children and excited about being there - muttering about "horrid children" and bitching about our presence in the studio. The character she played on the show was the polar opposite of the person she actually is - and has, since, long proven herself to be on other shows. For years, although I disliked her, I thought perhaps she'd been having a bad day, but unless every day on sets are bad days for her - and perhaps they are - then I'm pretty certain it's just her personality. Which, in my opinion is vile.

Neil Buchanan and Nick Staverson, on the other hand, were both happy to chat and sign autograph books for a while. Possibly to make up for the way that Ms T had behaved amongst and towards us all.

he only has one grown up daughter.

I wasn't involved so I wasn't aware of the number of children. I just remember my friend referring to the different between them and she knew them through the teaching of children.

I met Satan in B and Q. He was absolutely charming.

@CloneDodo
I don't believe all these posters claiming to have met Meghan Markle and that she stomping around strangling kittens and mugging old ladies
This type of stupid and ridiculous over exaggerated hype means that I'll automatically ignore everything else in your post.
Not one person has said anything like your pathetic statement

[quote 52andblue]@DoverSoul his QC is NSIT too (in fact young female lawyers are warned not to even sit next to him at a conference table). How I laughed (not) when he described AS in less than savory terms. A very senior Scottish lawyer involved in Sectarianism. They all use the Saunas. The Police know (and many of them do too) Horrible stuff going on in Scotland atm. Not 'celebrities' tho' (though they behave like they are!)[/quote]

@Riquesh - the headline of the article I have linked to below is thus:

"DISGRACED DJ DLT hit with private court action for attack on girl of primary school age as he already faces jail for groping TV show woman."

I'd always liked him, as I said in my post - I remembered him ever afterwards as being kind and funny... until this. I don't know whether he was found guilty of this, or not, as it happens, but it certainly soured my childhood memory of him and made me reassess the comments he'd made towards the young girls clustered about his van after the disco. Whose parents weren't there. Mine had already scared the shit out of him when he attempted to negotiate a higher fee before the disco had even started, so I was undoubtedly safe from his advances or comments - but those girls? Nope.

Regardless of the age of those whose claims of assault by him were not dismissed and subsequently taken to court - he's a pervert. Not quite in the Saville league perhaps... but also not exactly far off it, either.

www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/dave-lee-travis-guilty-sex-4314511

Sorry I'm not adding real anecdotes to this thread but I'd like to add to the many posts on here to say that Jimmy Savile always, always came across as utterly odd. I am nearly 60 and remember the days when he was on TV and newspapers regularly. I didn't know one person who liked him as a celebrity. Everybody, absolutely everybody would comment when he came on screen that he was creepy. Not only that but there were widespread rumours about him all the time I was growing up.

I never met him or knew anybody who met him. Even so, and even as a child he gave off very strange vibes. The facts about him weren't a surprise to anybody my age, I'm sure. Just the details. Everybody knew. Of course they did.

Iamthewombat

MarieFromStTropez
Not sure if they count as celebrity villains, but I worked for the Bin Laden family. Lovely people. Kind, compassionate, educated and the complete antithesis of what you’d expect.

Crikey! Tell us more. This is the post that has made me sit up and take notice.

@Iamthewombat you seem surprised to learn this about bin Laden. Why so? Do you believe everyone who commits and sanctions murder for political ends can’t be kind or compassionate or educated, people like Blair, Thatcher, Obama, Bush, Nixon, Churchill? They all take, or at least say that they take these actions for the good of their people or for the greater good. Doesn’t that imply a level of compassion, kindness towards their people? And isn’t it more likely that the other side - whichever it is - engages in its own propaganda? (Bin Laden was a university-educated engineer and I believe more than one of his wives was a professor or university lecturer.)

I don't know whether he was found guilty of this, or not, as it happens

You probably need to find out before you refer to someone as having been ‘indicted on several cases of child abuse’.

As I said before, he is clearly an abuser of women but you can’t just state people have been charged with several cases of child abuse when they haven’t. You’ll get yourself in bother as much as anything else.

@Hobbesmanc

Another vote for Gordon Ramsey. He's very charming in real life and really generous. I had a fantastic night drinking with Vanessa Feltz whose very witty and possibly a little over sharing but lovely with it. The same can't be said for Martine McCutcheon who was a bit of a cow when she'd had a wine

A friend of mine also said that Vanessa Feltz is lovely.

She spent a lot of time with her through work, but spent her downtime with her too.

Very interesting thread!

Not that he's particularly known as a villain or otherwise, but Martin Amis was at the same graduation ceremony as one of my family members, being given an honorary degree. He was one of three eminent writers in the same position. The other two were up first and both, in turn, humbly (and wittily) recalled fond memories of how valuable and enjoyable their time at the university had been and expressed their great appreciation and gratitude, saying what a huge privilege it was for them to have their awards bestowed upon them.

Martin came on last and gave an ultra-boring, me-focused sneery speech and said how privileged the university was to have been associated with him and how grateful and appreciative they should be that he agreed to accept the award!