The BBC has been making a song and dance this week about comments Nigel Farage may or may not have made in the school playground when he was a child.
Now its been alleged that its make-up artists have taken unpleasant action against the Reform UK leader.
Historian and best-selling author Lisa Hilton, who has presented BBC TV documentaries, has made the extraordinary claim that Farage’s face was painted with deliberately contaminated brushes when appearing on its programmes.
Explaining that she had heard this from a ‘morning news veteran’, the well-connected Hilton writes in The Critic magazine: ‘Naming no names, but Nigel Farage might want to start doing his own face, given the extraordinarily imaginative range of natural cosmetics which the brushes are loaded with when he’s in the chair.’
I’m told these ‘natural cosmetics’ allegedly include human saliva and other bodily fluids.
Farage declines to comment, but such alleged spite may not surprise the Brexit campaigner, who has long accused the BBC of Left-wing and Remainer bias.
Last year, he vowed to boycott the BBC after being accused of racism by some in a selected audience on a Question Time special for party leaders before the General Election.
‘Our state broadcaster has behaved like a political actor throughout this election,’ he said. ‘Reform will be campaigning to abolish the licence fee.’
Last week, he fended off claims, which he denies, that he racially abused fellow pupils at Dulwich College in the 1970s.
The BBC declined to comment on suggestions that Farage’s make-up was contaminated, but sources there insist the claims are completely false.
Murder, Sophie didn’t write, she tells charity do!
Sophie Ellis-Bextor is not a regular worshipper, but she was on her best behaviour when she took to the stage at St James’s Church in London’s Piccadilly.
Performing at the Quintessentially Foundation’s Fayre of St James’s, in aid of the Firefly Project, the singer, 46, admitted to changing the lyrics of her 2001 hit Murder On The Dancefloor.
‘It wasn’t me that wrote the line, ‘DJ, gonna burn this goddamn house right down’,’ she told the audience. ‘I was thinking that instead of singing, ‘Murder on the dancefloor’, I could swap it for, ‘Manger on the dancefloor’.’
Another unexpected change at the event, founded by Queen Camilla’s nephew Sir Ben Elliot, was actress Isla Fisher being forced to withdraw.
She was replaced by Emily In Paris star Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu, 62, who plays Sylvie Grateau.
‘You were expecting an Australian actress, but instead you got a French actress,’ she joked.
Plus ca change…
Harry Enfield, 64, admits it may surprise people to find he’s doing a stage tour featuring 1980s characters such as Loadsamoney.
Recalling one encounter, he says: ‘This bloke said, ‘You’re Harry Enfield, aren’t you? I used to like your stuff, but I thought you were dead.’
I said, ‘Sorry to disappoint you’, and he said, ‘All right, mate – don’t get clever’.
Baldrick’s age-old issue
When Blackadder star Sir Tony Robinson married Louise Hobbs in Italy, he insisted their 35-year age gap would not be a problem.
Now, however, the actor, 79, who played hapless Baldrick in the hit comedy, admits there is an issue.
‘I’ve had wonderful relationships,’ he says on the podcast Spooning With Mark Wogan. But he says: ‘I don’t have quite such a sex drive as I used to.’
Sir Tony wed Barbara Henshall in 1969, but they split four years later. He left wife No2, Mary Shepherd, mum of his two children, for singer Teri Bramah in 1992, before declaring marriage ‘a nonsense’.
Yet by 2011 he was at the altar with Louise, who is five years younger than his son. It sounds like Baldrick needs a cunning plan – Viagra!
Winslet’s boy Joe feared letting Kate film script
Having had his debut script, Goodbye June, turned into a star-studded Christmas film by his mother, Kate Winslet, Joe Anders insists that he’d actually had reservations about letting the Oscar winner get involved at all.
Joe, 21, is Kate’s son with her former husband Sir Sam Mendes, 60, and changed his professional surname to Anders in 2022.
The film stars Timothy Spall and Helen Mirren, but he only wrote the script for a screenwriting course at the National Film and Television School.
‘I wasn’t pitching it,’ he says. ‘I didn’t have it in my mind to make a movie of it at all. I was like, ‘Mum, no, you don’t need to do that – you don’t need to pretend just because you’re my mum’.’
Kate, 50, who made her directorial debut on the film, says: ‘Joe definitely did feel like, ‘But will people just think that this only happened because you are my mother?’
I kept saying, ‘If the script was a piece of s***, then yes. But it’s not’.’
Bill Nighy is used to star-struck fans, but he was awestruck himself when he met R&B singer Mary J Blige at the Royal Albert Hall.
Bill, 75, recalls: ‘I said something along the lines of, ‘You changed my life. Everything you do is exquisite and I worship you’.
She just looked at me as if I was mentally unstable and didn’t respond, so I left, feeling embarrassed – probably what I should have done in the first place.’
Parents may worry about children being glued to their phones, but adults need telling off, too. Former Hollyoaks star Gemma Atkinson, 41, has two children with Strictly Come Dancing partner Gorka Marquez.
Former Hollyoaks star Gemma Atkinson, 41, has two children with Strictly Come Dancing partner Gorka Marquez.
‘Now Mia is six, she says, ‘Let’s play. Why are you on your phone?’ admits dance pro Gorka, 35. ‘We try to put them on silent!’
