Celebrity gossip is just the best
You might not think it to look at me, but I am mad into celebrity gossip. I’m all about finding out what the latest stars have had for their breakfast, or where they’re on holiday this week, or who they’ve decided to have a sex relationship with. Celebrities are like normal people, but instead of being boring and ugly and stinking of raw mince they’re exciting, beautiful and smell of only the most exotic and delicious spices.
A friend told me something about some TV programme this week where the ultimate aim wasn’t actually to impregnate a fellow contestant, as I’d thought, but was in fact ‘the blue ticks and BooHoo deals’. Now, as a 40-year-old man I was secretly pleased with myself for being able to decode this esoteric cipher (in fact, there was nothing secret about it. I loudly bellowed about how proud of myself I was for getting what he meant across the table at lunch, perhaps even louder than the time I bellowed the word ‘semen’ in the mistaken belief that it was the answer to a crossword clue). And you see, that captures in a nutshell why celebs are so much better than us. I don’t have a blue tick, and I’m not in any danger of getting one. Learning Designers aren’t celebrities, no matter how much we might like to be, and in any case there’s a Canadian bobsleigh Olympian who shares my name, and I’ll grudgingly concede that his gold medals probably outshine my achievements (once featured as an extra in a Sean Maguire film that was shot at my school; passed my driving test with flying colours at only the fifth attempt).
I don’t even know anyone who has a blue tick. And BooHoo deals? You can forget about that. No one is paying me to endorse their clothing ranges, no matter how awesome I might look in their slacks or cardigans. But I’m happy with that. As I said: celebrities are better than us.
As I’ve mentioned before, working at the BBC gives me access to certain information that is somewhat privileged (like my sneak preview of the new Luther script, and an inside track on the national news up to 48 hours before it happens). This often includes celebrity gossip, and I’d like to share some of that with you now.
Obviously, I have to be discreet. If I went off half-cocked, telling you all about named celebrities’ proclivities left, right and centre, not only would my job be at risk but I’d probably be in danger of getting severely roughed up. Some of these people know some very hard enforcers, and I have to tread carefully to make sure that I don’t give too much away. With that in mind, feast your eyes on a few of my favourite celebrity tales.
Bouncy bouncy
My first bit of gossip involves a household name celebrity actor who has an equally famous wife. The rumour has it that this man has a rather unusual penchant that his wife refuses to be a party to, but that she allows him to seek succour for when his yearning gets too strong wherever he can find it, as long as he doesn’t do it at home or get caught by the press. And what is this unusual penchant? Let me tell you: he likes to do naked trampolining with ladies, sometimes as many as four at a time.
His squeals of delight as he sees women’s breasts and buttocks flying about like meaty pennants, and whilst his winkle takes on the appearance of an undercooked sausage in zero gravity, are apparently something to behold. Legend has it that he once nearly got busted by a lucky paparazzo who happened to nearly be in the right place at the right time, but he pays well and treats everyone involved with respect, so manages to keep it under wraps. But for how long?
The footballer with a strange hobby
You don’t expect to hear about footballers doing much other than courting glamour models, buying and crashing expensive sports cars and wearing clothes that make them look ridiculous, but the subject of my next piece of gossip bucks this trend. And how!
You wouldn’t know it to listen to his post-match interviews on Match Of The Day, but this Premier League midfielder is a keen alchemist who is convinced that he will one day find the Philosopher’s Stone, giving him the ability to turn base metals into gold. The money doesn’t bother him; he’s already paid a fortune as one of the league’s leading goal-scoring midfielders, but he has a constant and unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Also, he has created an entire army of tiny homunculi, and this is where it gets really weird. Rumour has it that he can’t be physically intimate with his beautiful wife unless his army of tiny people are stood on a replica of one of the stands of the football ground where he plays his home games, cheering him on in their reedy, high-pitched voices. His wife wasn’t particularly keen on this to begin with, but his promise of unlimited gold brought her round to the idea and now he makes sure that they sing special songs for her on her birthday, their anniversary and other special occasions (FA Cup final; new series of Death In Paradise premiere).
Milking it
We all know that celebrities as we see them in the glossy magazines and on our enormous flat-screen televisions don’t really look that impossibly glamorous in real life, and that their beautiful appearance is in part due to an army of stylists, make-up artists and hairdressers who follow them around like flies around dogshit. That’s not to say they’re not so beautiful that they don’t make the rest of us look like mannequins made from offcuts of the poorest available meat, dressed in rags found in bins, but even precious metals need polishing, eh?
But staying this beautiful needs work, and that’s where this next and final nugget of red hot gossip comes in. You’d know this singer from her string of hit singles, both as a solo artist and as part of a troupe of singers, but you’d never in a million years guess how she maintains her striking good looks. Inspired by the tale of Cleopatra bathing in ass’s milk, and for the love of God I hope she showered herself off before putting her clothes on, this celebrity likes to take her baths in animal milk also. The only problem is that her particular neighbourhood in London is a bit short on donkeys, and despite her repeated requests her local branch of Tesco Express have resolutely refused to stock it for her. No problem for this resourceful chanteuse though; she simply ‘borrows’ dogs from the nearby park and milks them into bottles in her shed, which she then uses to fill her daily bath. She always takes the dogs back to the park, reuniting them with their worried owners, and pretends to have come across them whilst out walking. The only problem is that as she gets older, her beauty regimen demands more and more dog-milk – and with owners starting to have their suspicions, she might have to look further afield to get the fluids she craves.
So there you have it. How exciting is that? I hope you feel like I felt when I first heard these stories, whispered over steaming mugs of the cheapest available tea in the breakout areas at work. I felt like I’d been initiated into some kind of a secret society in which secrets were freely bandied about like candy. I know some of you might be thinking ‘so what, I once did a wheelie on my BMX that lasted for about 19 seconds so my life is pretty exciting too’ but you’re wrong. You’re wrong! These stories are better than yours, because they happened to people who play sports or act or sing songs for a living, and you just work stacking the shelves of your local Pets At Home with chubs of dogmeat before going home to eat Pot Noodles. The rest of you who love celebrities and celebrity gossip like me, why not share your celebrity stories? You can send them via my (non-blue ticked) Twitter account – @matt_hindle – or ‘slide into my DMs’, whatever the fuck that might mean.