RIPbitch 2021

“Oh, lord. I didn’t mean to say anything quotable” – Donald Rumsfeld

As is tradition, we’re going to end the year by paying tribute to a few of the famous faces we said farewell to in 2021 the only way we know how: by raking through the Popbitch archive and repeating some of the stuff we can no longer be sued for.

Unless Ghislaine Maxwell decides to go full stool pigeon, we’ll be taking a week off – but we’ll see you again in 2022 for more of the same…

Happy New Year x

In all the tributes and obituaries written for Sarah Harding, one thing we didn’t see touched on much was Sarah’s sense of generosity. Even in the earliest days of Girls Aloud, when everything was new and dazzling and exciting, she was still happy to lend a helping hand to her fellow artists – even those who had previously been her competition.

For instance, the night before one of the other Popstars The Rivals bands, Phixx, were due to film the video for their debut single (a video that saw singer Mikey Green chained up and writhing around naked) Sarah stayed up with him all night to help wax his hairy arsecrack, so his bum looked nice and smooth on screen.

Prince Philip’s media nickname “Phil The Greek” wasn’t just confined to the press. For a while, “The Greek” was also the secret code name by which his police protection officers referred to him.

Less interesting: the Queen’s code name was “Purple One”.

More interesting: Prince Andrew’s was “The Cunt”.

Something DMX was less well known for in life was unwittingly being the cause of one of those infamous anger management ‘incidents’ for which Naomi Campbell was once so renowned.

Campbell was starring in a production of the Vagina Monologues in California when she learned that DMX and his entourage were staying in the same hotel. Campbell’s new PA decided she’d try to get herself in her boss’s good books by inviting the famous rapper to attend the show. So she persuaded the DMX crew to come, delivered them all guest passes… only for them to no-show and leave an embarrassing row of empty seats.

An irate Naomi found out what happened and was raging on the phone to a friend about it after the show when the assistant responsible walked in. Campbell dealt with it in classic fashion: by throwing her phone.

It was a shocking outburst – but the tension that filled the room was soon broken by a disembodied voice coming from the corner of the room, as the friend on the other end of the line was heard awkwardly asking “Er, Naomi? Hello…? Is anyone there…?”

Barely a minute after the news about Una Stubbs broke, we got our first message asking if we were going to run ‘The Story’ in tribute.

If you don’t know the urban legend of Una Stubbs and the coffee table, it’s about as Popbitchy as a tribute could be – but we stopped telling it not long after we learned that Una Stubbs’ kids had been trying for years to keep their mum from using the internet so that she’d never stumble across the story herself.

Fearing (reasonably) that the first thing an actor would do online is search for their own name, her kids tried everything they could to stop her accessing the net. When that became impossible, they changed tack, telling her never to search for her own name online – warning her it was a classic way to leave herself open to scammers: a little white lie to stop her from accidentally chancing across the story on one of the dirtier corners of the web.

We didn’t want to add to their woes then, and we don’t now. But we’re assured the story is totally untrue – and that Una “wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less [REDACTED] on a [REDACTED].”

P writes:
“I invited some family to see the Stones on their Bigger Bang Tour. Charlie Watts used to eat in Crew Catering and would just chum around with whomever, so I warned my family not to freak out if he walked in (and also instructed them not to eat any of the food, as it’s the crew’s only chance to eat).

“They were sitting quietly when Charlie Watts walked in. He clocked they were someone’s family and asked would they mind if he sat down with them. He chatted with them and asked if they wanted any food. They explained they understood it was for working crew only etc. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘but there’s plenty. There’s always leftovers – and the desserts are exceptional.’

“He got up, filled a few plates and served it to them. He then excused himself and said ‘I’ve got to get to work,’ then smiled, ‘…you know’ – pointing to the direction of the stage.”

Siegfried Fischbacher died in January, just eight months after his tiger-taming partner Roy Horn – but both Vegas stars had been the subject of separate rumours that they’d actually died many years earlier.

Whispers around Vegas suggested Siegfried popped his clogs ages ago and a surgically-altered stand-in was drafted in to keep the Vegas show running, securing the $44m they made in annual ticket sales. Similar rumours went round about Roy after he was attacked by Montecore the tiger live on stage. Even one of their friends, Shirley MacLaine, thought Roy had been subbed for a lookalike.

However, since these latest death announcements were made the stage show has finally wrapped up – so maybe the rumours were never true? (Hopefully the ones about the extravagant foursomes they used to enjoy with Liberace and Scott Thorson are though…)

The metal world mourned the loss of Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison this summer – and even those who didn’t care for the band had nothing but compliments to offer about him as a musician.

Without question, Joey was the most committed to the Slipknot style. Even when soundchecking to an otherwise empty room, Joey would be the one member of the band who insisted on wearing his mask throughout. (We’re told it was quite a sight to see them soundcheck their way through a note-perfect rendition of the Lipps Inc classic Funky Town.)

It wasn’t just Slipknot he was committed to either. Joey played in many other bands over his career, including one in his hometown of Des Moines, Iowa. Whenever he went back home, even at the height of Slipknot’s fame, he’d pick up his sticks and go to play drums with a bunch of 70 year-old local musicians in their swingin’ big band.

Lee “Scratch” Perry was a colossus of reggae and dub; a visionary pioneer whose endlessly inventive imagination has left behind an incredible legacy and body of work.

And like any good visionary pioneer, he was absolutely chock-full of quirks too. He was famous for blowing weed smoke into his mixing desk to imbue it with mystical properties, and spritzing his master tapes with a cocktail of whisky, blood and piss to enhance their “spiritual fidelity”.

But his most peculiar one? In order to maintain his connection with nature, Lee used to like to occasionally shit into a champagne glass – and then place that glass in a cabinet in his house.

Much to the bafflement of his wife.

It’s been years in the post, but it finally happened: the axe has fallen on The X Factor. Hopeful superstars of the future needn’t despair too much though. It hasn’t been the path to One Direction/Little Mix mega-fame for a long, long time.

Earlier this year, 2017 winners Rak-Su had a string of gigs playing secondary schools’ end-of-year parties.

At one of those schools, the pupils had so little idea who Rak-Su were that their performance was preceded by a lesson about the band, at which the kids were played the song they were due to perform later, to make sure that at least some of them recognised it.

A lot of the tributes to Nick Kamen noted that he was best known as the model in the iconic 80s Levi’s ad, where he stripped down to his boxers in a launderette as Heard It Through The Grapevine played.

The ad was a massive hit, it launched Nick’s profile globally and famously increased sales of 501s by 800%. But what’s less well known is that the same advert went a long way to making boxer shorts cool again too.

That hadn’t been part of the plan. According to Sir John Hegarty, whose agency created the ad, they originally had Nick strip down to a pair of tighty-whities. But Nick filled them so snugly that it quickly became clear they’d have no chance getting the footage past TV censors. So they switched him to a looser, less-revealing cut – and, in doing so, inadvertently made boxer shorts sexy in the eyes of Brits again.

Sadly, Jim Steinman never got to see his Batman musical get made (a show he described as “Guys And Dolls on mescaline”) – but the demos are still on his site.
[Listen here]

RIP Michael K Williams. Omar Little in The Wire. Chalky White in Boardwalk Empire. And James The Policeman in R Kelly’s batshit hip-hopera Trapped In The Closet.
[Watch on YouTube]

A playlist of various radio stations jack-knifing into their Prince Philip death announcements
[R1 Dance is a good one]

Una Stubbs’ art would have made a lovely coffee table book
[See it here]

RIP Steven Spurrier, one of the giants of wine
[Interesting profile]

Nadine Coyle thinks she’s being haunted by Sarah Harding…
[Read the details]