RIPbitch 2023

Before we toss 2023 onto the scrapheap, we wanted to pay one final tribute to some of the stars we’ve lost these last 12 months – and we’re going to do so in time-honoured fashion. By raking through our archives and telling you a bunch of stories we can no longer be sued for.

We’ll be back to sully your inboxes again in early 2024.

Happy New Year x

Matthew Perry didn’t want to be remembered just as Chandler off of Friends – so to honour that wish, we’ll remind you that he was also responsible for one of the great late-night talkshow anecdotes too.

One afternoon, alone in his home, Matthew decided he wanted to spend a bit of quality time with himself, so fired up a dirty movie on his home entertainment system. Intending on treating himself to the full luxury experience, he lingered over it, spending a good half-hour enjoying the build up – before throwing himself into it for a really mucky orgy scene.

After he had finished up, he tried to turn his TV off but found he couldn’t. The best he could do was turn the volume down. But when the sound display read 00 he swore he could still hear sex noises coming from somewhere.

It was another couple of minutes before he remembered that the previous night he’d been outside in his garden, relaxing with a glass of wine, piping music through his outdoor speakers. Speakers which were still connected – and had been blasting out porn to his neighbours around the San Fernando Valley at full pelt.

As brazen as many modern politicians can be, Silvio Berlusconi really was in a league of his own. Gordon Brown tells a story about how he was once approached at a G20 meeting by Berlusconi, who singled him out specifically to ask a very important question.

Something related to the catastrophic global economic downturn? Seeking advice on how to take over from a Prime Minister who had lost the trust of the nation?

Erm, no. Berlusconi wanted to know if Brown could get him Naomi Campbell’s phone number.

Long before Gwyneth Paltrow started flogging her fanny candles, Vivienne Westwood partnered with fragrance house Coty to develop a new scent.

At the sample unveiling, Vivienne was clearly unimpressed with the direction the perfumiers had taken, so explained in her own inimitable manner how she felt her trademark scent should present itself.

Her brief was simple: “I want it to smell like CUNT!”

A lot of the tributes to Paul O’Grady made much of his trailblazing work as a drag artist, his dedication to the LGBT community, his love for animals and his intergenerational appeal – but he was also one of the great lash hounds of his era. Possibly of all time.

To give you a top-tier testimonial: Paul was once introduced to Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones (through their mutual friend, Cilla Black). To our knowledge, there is no written record of the carnage that ensued but Paul put the band through their paces to such an extent that Mick Jagger has since said that the Rolling Stones have just three things they need to be kept away from…

“Drugs, booze and Lily Savage.”

Back when Michael Parkinson was working in Australia, there was a point where Elton John was out on tour over there too. Ever the lavish host, Elton invited Parky and his wife to join him out on a yacht for a little party he was throwing.

Unfortunately, Parky and Mary arrived to the jetty a little too late – just in time to catch the HMS Elton sailing off towards the horizon. A couple of obliging water cops recognised Parky however, so offered the couple a quick ride out to the vessel.

A few minutes later, they were aboard. But far from being happy to see them, Parky was greeted by a furious Elton. It turned out that the rest of the party had mistaken Parky’s lift for a police bust, so had lobbed all their gear overboard. Thousands of dollars’ worth of narcotics were lost to the waters, ruining the party for everyone – so the Parkinsons were pariahs for the rest of the night.

Michael Gambon was once invited as a guest of honour, alongside Princess Margaret, to some fancy toff’s house for a gargantuan slap-up dinner. There, guests were treated to 13 individual courses – with a different wine pairing for each one.

After such an extravagantly indulgent binge, Gambon began to feel a little queasy. Figuring (wisely) that he might not make it through his host’s massive house before he chucked his guts, he got up and staggered towards the fireplace to spew there instead.

His host, spying an impending disaster with his very valuable antique hearth rug, dashed to intercept. He effectively rugby tackled poor Gambon out of the rug’s way – causing Gambon to throw up right there on the spot – resulting in the pair of them landing on the floor in a heap of vomit and tuxedo.

Throughout it all, Princess Margaret didn’t bat an eyelid.

JH writes:
“When I was about eight my dad took me to see the panto of Cinderella at Wimbledon Theatre. Afterwards we waited at the stage door to meet the famous TV personality playing Buttons who kindly signed my programme and drew me a doodle before telling me the following joke:

“Have you ever heard of the oomigoolie bird? It has a six foot wingspan but one inch legs. Whenever it lands you can hear it call ‘ooh me goolies’.

“The celebrity talking genitals to a child? Rolf Harris.”

No matter how tired he was, how tough the show had been or how sparse the audience, Barry Humphries had a failsafe trick to guarantee he mustered a sincere smile for his curtain calls.

It came to him from Noel Coward (via Max Oldaker) and involved him clenching his teeth and quietly repeating a particular phrase under his breath as he waved to the audience.

The phrase supposedly gave a more authentic smile than the classic “cheese”. So as he walked off stage each night, Barry would whisper to himself “Silly cunts, silly cunts, silly cunts.”

Much was written about Cormac McCarthy when he died earlier this year. Not nearly enough was written about his ex-wife, Jennifer – who arguably made just as important a contribution to the Western literary canon, by providing one of the greatest headlines of all time: “Cormac McCarthy’s Ex-Wife Pulled A Gun Out Of Her Vagina During An Argument About Aliens”.

If you’re the type of person who likes details, you can read the arrest report here.

If you’re more the broad strokes sort: Jennifer and her new partner got into a fight about space aliens. She stormed off and returned later dressed in lingerie – with a silver Smith and Wesson slipped up inside her. She then proceeded to have sex with the gun in front of her boyfriend, before pulling it out and pointing the barrel at his head, asking “Who is crazy, you or me?”

Presumably rhetorically.

Crosby, Stills and Nash had one of the all-time great showbiz beefs, which remains a high watermark for celebrity squabbling. One of the reasons Crosby continued to hate Nash was because of Nash’s memoir, which Crosby claimed is “chock-full of misinformation”.

One section he took particular umbrage with is this one: “Often I would knock on Crosby’s hotel door, which he kept propped open with a security jamb, and he’d be getting oral sex from two women – all while he was talking and doing business on the phone and rolling joints and smoking and having a drink.”

Crosby’s emphatic denial of this? “Not true… I don’t roll joints when I’m getting oral sex.”

Sinead O’Connor’s isolated vocal on Nothing Compares 2U
[Listen on YouTube]

Did you hear the Albanian Prime Minister’s joke about Yevgeny Prigozhin?
[Watch on TikTok]

RIP Steve Harwell from Smash Mouth. In tribute, here’s All Star played on a series of melons.
[Watch on YouTube]

If you want to stage a tribute screening of the triple-feature that Paul Reubens was watching when he was arrested for indecent exposure in 1991, these are the titles you want.
[1/ Catalina Five-O: Tiger Shark]
[2/ Nurse Nancy]
[3/ Turn Up the Heat]

Nick Cave performing A Rainy Night In Soho at Shane MacGowan’s funeral
[Watch on Twitter]

Max Clifford’s candid camera thoughts on the late Mohamed Al-Fayed
[Watch on Popbitch]