“MEAT! MEAT, ROBBIE!”

The NTAs took place last night. That’s the one where the entire TV industry turns out to give Ant & Dec, Strictly Come Dancing and Mrs Brown’s Boys the exact same awards year after year after year.

If you need any further proof the NTAs is stuck in a weird little time warp: spotted propping up the bar, wearing his sunglasses indoors and dazzling passers by with his pearly whites… Joey Essex.

Times are tough at Studio Ramsay – Gordon Ramsay’s TV production outfit. He’s just had to let his entire development team go. A difficult decision, no doubt. But they were sent on their way with some classic Ramsay wisdom.

The decision was described to newly redundant staff like so:

“If mushroom stroganoff isn’t working on the menu, we replace it with something else.”

Which Oscar-winning actress – when asked recently what she would do if she wasn’t a famous movie star – gave the rather bleak answer: “Eat”?

Former Home Secretary (and former Masked Singer) Alan Johnson has whisked himself away to Greece for a little holiday, where he’s unmasked himself as a bit of a knobhead.

At a restaurant in Kefalonia the other night, Alan was overheard bollocking the waiter for the crime of bringing out his table’s main courses before they’d finished their starter.

Highlights from his rant included: “You could keep it warm until we’re ready, it’s a fucking kitchen, Jesus Christ!” and “This is easily the worst restaurant in Greece.”

His mortified wife was tasked with calming him down while Alan sat with a face like a slapped arse.

We mentioned last week that Holly Willougby was notorious during her tenure at This Morning for taking birthday cakes home without ever offering to share. The story rang a bell for one Popbitch reader who visited the TM set in that same era.

anon writes:
“When I went into the makeup room, Amanda Holden came in – she was sitting in for Holly on the old couch. She had a large tray of decorated cupcakes in her hands, which she placed on the table saying these were to celebrate her first week on the show.

“After she left, the makeup ladies said how lovely she was and how ‘You wouldn’t get that from Holly!'”

Now that he’s reunited with Noel, Liam Gallagher needs a new enemy. Luckily he’s found one already, in Greenpeace.

Earlier this week Greenpeace shared a quote from Liam saying: “Fuck the sea. I ain’t going in that. Fuck that, mate. That ain’t meant for us. That’s meant for the sharks, and the jellyfish, tadpoles and stuff. But a hot tub? I’m alright in a hot tub. Can hang about in there for a bit.”

Cue a panicked call from Liam’s girlfriend/manager – demanding Greenpeace take the post down, because it made look Liam like an official Greenpeace spokesperson and it was “at risk” of becoming a developing story.

Heaven forfend it might distract from all the glowing press the Gallagher brothers’ are currently enjoying about price-gouging.

As the Tory leadership race inches towards its painfully tedious conclusion, we’re all on the edge of our seats to find out which of them will win. Naturally.

Tory bigwig Robbie Gibb is backing Kemi Badenoch. But perhaps Kemi hasn’t quite yet learned all the soft skills a political leader needs.

She was a guest at his birthday party this summer, but rather than buttering up her host and supporter in front of his guests, they were instead treated to the sight of Kemi (and her brood of hungry children) trailing Gibb around his garden.

Chanting MEAT! MEAT, ROBBIE!” at him until he stopped socialising and went and made sure her children were fed.

C writes:
“Every year on May 4th I always remember when I was working on a play with James Earl Jones. We were at work before him, so got all of our ‘May The 4th’ jokes out of our systems as we weren’t sure how he’d be about them.

“A group of us just happened to milling around in the corridor by the stage door when he came in. We all looked at him, biting our tongues, when he just smiled, doffed his cap and said loudly and proudly ‘May the 4th be with you!’ and started laughing.”

If you think you see too much of Stephen Mulhern on TV, you get even more in person.

Earlier this week, Mulhern was recording one of the special episodes of ITV’s upcoming You Bet! reboot. The audience were brought in for a 7pm start. And six hours later – at 1am – it was still going on.

With news that Dave Grohl has been shagging around, fathering kids outside his marriage, we ran his name through the Popbitch archive for stories. There, we found a long-overlooked email letting us know Dave had given an answer to the perennial Popbitch question: “Who would win in a fight between a baboon and a badger?”

Dave’s answer was “Badger” – but he then launched into a story of his own experience of animal violence.

Dave was once beaten up by a goose. He was playing ice hockey on a frozen lake, the puck went for a burton, he went to fetch it and – in doing so – disturbed a goose. The annoyed goose then proceeded to “kick [his] ass”, taking full advantage of the fact that Dave kept slipping over on the ice – pecking and headbutting him as he flailed helplessly on the frozen floor.

Not a hall-of-fame celebrity anecdote, we grant you. But one that might bring his wife a little bit of comfort at this time.

Real Housewife Bethenny Frankel’s home is up for sale
[A shade under $6m]

Otters are on the rampage – again
[In Malaysia]

Why are Gen-Z cracking so many jokes about 9/11?
[Read on Rolling Stone]

Trump’s dog-eating rant fits neatly to the Snoopy music
[Watch on Twitter]

The case against Matthew Perry’s alleged killers
[Read on Vulture]

Gay animals much more common than you’d think, says zookeeper
[Throuples too]

Texas candidate smokes bong in her campaign ad
[Read on IB Times]

Britcore is the latest trend overseas on TikTok
[Oh good]

The mystery of Celebrity Number Six – and the power of crowdsourced investigations
[Read on Substack]

Thanks also to: the hundreds of you who emailed in to inform us that, as of last Thursday morning, a new female monarch had been crowned. Māori queen, Ngā Wai hono i te pō, in Aotearoa New Zealand. (Apologies, your maj.)

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