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?

@TaraR2020 NOOOOOOO really? Lucy is horrible? I'm gutted, I love her

*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.

I agree - he was as creepy as all get out, and even on his Jim'll Fix It show you could see that many of the children were very uncomfortable with him. Dodn't surprise me at all when the truth came out.

Rolf Harris, however, broke my heart . . .

[quote sadpapercourtesan]@TaraR2020 NOOOOOOO really? Lucy is horrible? I'm gutted, I love her [/quote]
Same here!

I worshipped her very hairslide . . . and now this!

I used to work in a camera shop, a few doors down there was an art supplies shop, we both had a semi-regular celebrity customer and I was always jealous they got the nice friendly charming one, where ours was rude and pushy.

We got to serve Timmy Mallett, though we never let on we recognised him - he seemed too desperate for recognition, his ringtone was Itsy Bitsy and we're pretty certain he rang himself just so we'd hear it. 😂 He was such a nuisance that my boss used to run and hide when she saw him coming.

I'm a little less jealous of the other shop now though, they got Rolf Harris.

It's usual on threads like this for someone to say they're on tenterhooks in case anybody pops up to slag off Anthony Head. I don't recall anyone with a bad word for him. Fingers crossed!

@JustJustWhy

Grotbags!

My brother and I (aged 10/11) were loitering in a corridor at Central studios in Brum. We were there to sit in the audience of some kids’ show that my dad was working on.

She was in her civvies but instantly recognisable, and came bustling by and gave us a friendly nod hello. Made our day!

I'm actually gutted at this story. She should have stayed in character and called you 'snivelling brats'! THAT would have made my day!

Probably wayyy too removed to count for anything, but one of my mates got pissed up at University with the rest of the houseshare and they were talking about Grotbags as one of their favourite characters as kids. One of them had the bright idea of writing to her to invite her to his 19th birthday and they others all agreed it was a brilliant idea. As you do.

A few weeks went by, they'd sobered up (and got drunk again a few times) and forgotten about it. Two days before his birthday, he got a handwritten letter from her, thanking him for the lovely invitation, she thought she might be a little too old to join in with the party, but have a wonderful time - and enclosed a couple of signed photographs of her in character.

Gasp0de I can honestly say Anthony Head gave the worst performance I've ever seen in a professional theatre in 40 years. But my friend who worked with him in same show said he was very nice.

Oh, just remembered a model/presenter many years ago being very unfriendly, think Boddingtons adverts.
I served her at the bar at a tennis court abroad (I was only around 21, she must’ve been a few years older) I was quite gobsmacked as had never met a celeb before, she was gorgeous but so moody.

Met Davina as a game show host way back in the day when she wasn’t quite super famous but was presenting it, she was so so lovely and down to earth with the audience.

Have met Peter Jones, lovely man, quite suave, a touch cheesy, but fit! Wife lovely too

@ShatnersWig, phew!

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll aye you're right, fat fingers

As I say, seriously odd. I wouldn't advertise my membership of the tinfoil hat brigade either to the powers that be if I was convinced they were watching me but who knows. It was definitely him - I wasn't convinced but there's a process for validating letters from people claiming to be well known public figures and the valuation confirmed it was RA. It made me quite sad really because I had been rather taken with him in Blackadder and thought he was too intelligent to be a conspiracy nut. But no sadly.

I was at junior school with Melanie Sykes (think someone referred to her in a previous post as moody). She was very smiley and she explained the plot of Wuthering Heights to me as we walked around the playground. She seemed quite brainy for a 10 year old.

The naturalist David Bellamy was grumpy and rude in real life (not like his jolly TV persona). An actress friend said similar about Bill Oddie who was downright unpleasant.

I met Romesh Ranganathan at a festival and he was lovely. Very down to earth and modest. I was at the end of my tether with my toddler and he had come over to sympathise!

@RampantIvy

Geoffrey Boycott. He is as obnoxious in real life as his public image.

I agree. Met him many times. A misogynistic rude man.

[quote sadpapercourtesan]@TaraR2020 NOOOOOOO really? Lucy is horrible? I'm gutted, I love her [/quote]
In fairness to her, this was on the one occasion I've met her and I have also witnessed her being perfectly pleasant to others...But, as I said, this was not my experience. I doubt she's a straight up horrible person but you know what they say - never meet your heroes!

@NonsensicalHair Hopefully was an off day or was maybe my expression as I recognised her 🤷🏻‍♀️Could be quite awkward I guess 🤣
She seems lovely on tv and I’m a Northerner too from near her area, so I want her to be nice!

@ARoseDowntown

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.)

Calm down, dear. I’m interested in the experiences of a poster who worked for a historical figure involved in one of the biggest political events of the last twenty years.

You have no idea what my opinion of Osama Bin Laden or his family is, so please don’t go off on one based on supposition.

I’d be interested in the experiences of Robert Mugabe’s manicurist but that doesn’t make me racist. I’d be interested in the experiences of Donald Trump’s toupee stylist but that doesn’t make me anti-American.

I hope that clears things up.

Bill Oddie suffers from severe depression and BPD. It could possibly be that he's unpleasant independently of that, but his MH issues are clearly a very big factor in how he will often come across to people who don't know him.

That said, he IS a villain insofar as he aided and abetted a certain Mr A Partridge in fraudulently claiming a dressing gown that was a personal gift as a business expense for tax purposes - hanging's too good for him

MS admitted assaulting her husband - so she might not be quite as sweet as she might seem. I don't know if there were any mitigating circumstances or if it was/she considered it to be self-defence??

@ShatnersWig

Gasp0de I can honestly say Anthony Head gave the worst performance I've ever seen in a professional theatre in 40 years. But my friend who worked with him in same show said he was very nice.

Years ago I met him in bath. He was stood waiting for a taxi (as was I) when two older women grinning approached him for a chat. He was utterly lovely to them. Smiled and said hello to me as he passed by me helping them to their car (doesn't know me from Adam and I never said anything to him, though I was trying to work out if it was him).

Utterly lovely.

No one believed it was really him when I said about it (the consensus being why would he be in bath??) until I mentioned it in front of someone who was from bath who shrugged their shoulders and simply said "yeah he's like that" and then said he's basically considered one of the cities treasures as he lives around the area somewhere.

When he was in Buffy there was a lot of attempts to dig dirt on him, I remember that, none of which ever came to anything, but I remember thinking it was a mean thing to do (I knew him from the Nescafé adverts).

Had to meet Prince Andrew at work (about 20 years ago) - they asked for volunteers for the meet and greet - no-one volunteered so they picked a few of us. He was absolutely lovely - really funny, intelligent and not at all sleazy. Was really sad when I heard all the recent stuff.

My BIL and family accidentally gatecrashed Davina McCalls birthday party many years ago and said she and all her family were lovely and welcomed them in.

DH worked with Duchess of Cambridge before she was engaged to William, think she was on a gap year. He says she was hard working and quiet, perfectly pleasant.

Must’ve been 1997 as I was in my first year at uni and had to change trains at Manchester. Saw the guy who played Des Barnes in Corrie, waiting on a platform. Had a crush on him at the time so was thinking of going over but before I could an old lady approached him. She was very sweet and looked quite frail, ever so politely asked if she could have an autograph. He did a sneery sort of scowl, looked her slowly up and down in contempt then put his sunglasses on and turned his back on her. Didn’t say a word to her. Poor lady looked crushed.
Second is the comedian Mel Smith. I worked as a part time waitress when he and a gang of mates came in. He struck me as a nasty piece of work. They stayed for hours shouting over the rest of this very nice restaurant and making ridiculous demands, complaining about everything and making disgusting lewd comments to the younger girls. He had everyone running rings round him and didn’t even leave a tip, despite spending hundreds on their lunch.

@sadpapercourtesan well I have a relative who's worked with her and said she's lovely and very sweet.

We also knew David Bellamy for years and he was lovely.

@Iamthewombat excellent reply to a thoroughly sanctimonious post.

My friend used to have to do some work for Priti Patel and said she is an awful woman.
Rude, demanding and impatient.