Please Scream Inside Your Heart

A few years ago, we wrote a story about David Walliams that resulted in us receiving a pretty salty letter from his publishers, HarperCollins. They felt that, by alleging he didn’t always care for the company of children, we owed Walliams an apology.

We didn’t make one, but maybe we should have done?

Given the screenshots of private Twitter messages that emerged on social media this week – in which he appears to have generously invited some 17 year old girls to meet up with him at Britain’s Got Talent – it seems David Walliams does enjoy the company of children after all and we were wrong to suggest otherwise.

We couldn’t be happier to correct the record.

The government’s big plan to kickstart the economy is by encouraging everyone to “Eat Out To Help Out”. The slogan has caught on (for obvious reasons) but a celebrity endorsement would really go a long way to drive the message home. So who is the best posterboy for eating out?

Michael Douglas: After famously claiming that his love of cunnilingus was what caused his oral cancer, Douglas went on to suggest that the best cure for it was… more cunnilingus.

Abz from 5ive: His favourite bedroom trick was something called “The Tongue Handstand”.

Craig David: As well as being a passionately devoted muncher, Craig also leaves lots of little bowls of sweets out around his pad for visitors to enjoy. Much like a restaurant.

Have a better suggestion? hello@popbitch.com

Which member of the Royal Family could do wonders for the hospitality industry and give the government’s latest scheme a huge boost if they’d only allow the papers to print the photos they had of him “helping out” a blow-up doll?

Obviously it’s a cornerstone of a free and functioning democracy that people are allowed to defend themselves against lies and slander in open court, but with all that’s being revealed in the Johnny Depp v the Sun libel case it doesn’t seem possible that anyone will emerge from it with a better reputation than they started with.

It’s often said that the only winners in a situation like this are the lawyers, but that’s not strictly true. PRs get to rack up some billable hours too.

In recent years, Depp has engaged the services of reputation management firm, Hawthorn, to help proactively boost his profile. Whether that was a smart idea remains to be seen, but Hawthorn’s co-founder certainly has plenty of experience in dealing with scandal-magnets who often need their public image laundered.

Ben Elliot, current Chairman of the Conservative Party.

One of the reputations mangled by the Johnny Depp trial yesterday was Paul Bettany’s, as lawyers read out the texts that he and Depp sent each other, joking about how they should kill Amber Heard and shag her corpse.

One detail that didn’t emerge – but was alluded to – is that Depp and Bettany are no longer friends.

The pair were once so close that Johnny thought nothing of lending out his private jet to Paul, but things all fell apart when they were starring in the critically mauled Mortdecai together. By the time the reshoots were being filmed their friendship had deteriorated to the point that Depp would only speak to Bettany through his assistant.

Which, coincidentally, was around the same time that Depp was insisting everyone on set had to be on molly – including the cameramen – or he wouldn’t shoot.

Having recently reopened its theme parks, Japan has issued strict guidance to visitors that screaming on rollercoasters is banned. As it risks the spread of coronavirus, parks are requesting that riders “Please scream inside your heart”.

If that sounds difficult, perhaps they could take a lesson from Loose Women pundit, Jane Moore, who seems to have perfected the art of doing just that.

One Popbitch reader remembers being at a launch event at Thorpe Park where they were making full use of the lack of queues for Nemesis Inferno. Just before they were due to enjoy a ride on an otherwise completely empty carriage, Jane Moore came running up asking if she could get on too.

Thinking she was excited to ride, they invited her to sit next to them – but was surprised to discover that, as the ride set off and the whiplash kicked in, Moore made absolutely no sound, expression or show of emotion for the entire thing.

And then, when it was finished, walked off in total silence.

Our proposed two-week quarantine course of daily Popbitch doses has ended up running to nearly 100 issues – which means we have published almost 500 stories, facts and other exclusive titbits away from the weekly newsletter.

Some of these stories would never have made it our way had it not been for coronavirus, so if you’re looking for some positives from this miserable year, then we’ve collected them all in one place.

[Read the Daily Tonic archive here]

On Monday, we had a short mention of Ennio Morricone’s insistence that journalists address him as “Maestro”, which led to someone sharing this…

ennuyee writes:
“Your story about how celebs like to be addressed made me think of a friend’s story from years ago. He was working a busy desk at New Line Cinema in NY in its heyday and a fellow with a ‘foreign accent’ called and asked to speak to his boss. The guy diligently asked the caller’s name and heard ‘Suryan’. He wasn’t too sure he was hearing such an exotic name right though, so asked Suryan how his name was spelled.

“To which the caller responded, ‘Sir Ian! Sir Ian Fucking McKellen!’

“Ever since, I can’t see McKellen without mentally inserting a ‘Fucking’ between his first and last name.”

Yesterday we asked daily readers to tell us about their worst experiences of celebrity interviews. One name cropped up twice.

N writes:
“A well-oiled Jessie Wallace tottered in to the press lounge backstage at an awards do at the Grosvenor hotel, picked up a bottle of wine with a glass and slumped in the corner. Stars had come backstage to the press room for a quick anodyne chat, so I went over to get her thoughts on the evening. She slung a glass of wine at me, told me to fuck off and ordered security to throw me out for hassling her and invading her private space.

“It was Jessie who security escorted from the press room…”

We’ve also been asking daily readers for tales of the clumsiest celebs they’ve ever bumped into – which resulted in us hearing this story…

MW writes:
“I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Jedward several times. Very sweet, genuine lads, if slightly knackering. Once they had a massive sushi platter delivered at the start of our chat and while bouncing around excitedly, one of them started choking – coughing, spluttering, red-eyed.

“Turned out he’d eaten the chicken nugget-sized ball of wasabi.”

Pop music is getting happier again
[Finally!]

Debbie Harry’s isolated vocal on Rapture
[Listen on YouTube]

A seal is trying to shag swimmers in Dorset
[Read on the Dorset Echo]

Pet Shop Boys have remastered some of their old videos
[See on YouTube]

Anti-Swan Graffiti 3: Posh Duck edition
[See on Edinburgh Live]

The National Enquirer theme park sues AMI over the catch-and-kill scandal
[Read in NY Post]

Meanwhile, AMI’s problem child Dylan “Dyldo” Howard is reinventing himself as a TV pundit
[Upstaged by Fluffy the Dog]

If you want to catch up on our 100+ daily audio quizzes they’re all here
[Daily Tonic: Audio Quiz]

Still Bored?
It’ll still be a while until we can host an IRL edition of the Popbitch Popquiz safely. In the meantime, we have some downloadable, play-at-home versions if you need entertaining this weekend
[Browse at popbitch.com]