We’ve all had our share of awkward fangirling moments, and it appears comedian Rhod Gilbert is no exception.
While the 54-year-old may want other celebrities to share their embarrassing childhood memories on his chat programme Growing Pains, it turns out he has his own outstanding story.
Rhod once had a run-in with Padam Padam star Kylie Minogue, but things went horribly wrong.
Rhod revealed to Metro.co.uk ahead of the premiere of his new season of the Comedy Central programme that Kylie was one of his boyhood loves, among WonderWoman, Miss Piggy, and Nanette Newman.
He said: ‘I did meet Kylie once, I had a teenage crush on Kylie and then I met her a few years ago.’
‘It went wrong,’ he warned.
‘I used to work in Curry’s as a teenager, and they have packs of TVs on shelves, and throughout the day Neighbours was often on because it was on at lunchtime and then at tea-time.
‘So she was on like 30 TVs, Neighbours was on all these TVs in the Curry’s story.
‘And then when I performed with her on a TV show, everyone was doing their thing, and at the end we all lined up across the stage to take a bow and I leaned across to her and I was going to tell her this story.
‘And I started by saying, “I used to watch you on 30 televisions.”
‘And then the producers moved her out of the way, so she was left going “What?!”
‘That’s all I got the chance to say, “I used to watch you on 30 televisions,” like some…’
Definitely uncomfortable!
Rhod, on the other hand, has had his fair share of odd fan experiences, from tattoos to unusual presents.
He told us: ‘I always find it odd when people get tattoos of your face, or a copy of the tattoo that you’ve got.
‘That always freaks me out a little bit.’
But there was one present that was much creepier.
‘I’ve been sent a lot of weird fan gifts,’ he began, insisting ‘nothing too saucy’.
‘Somebody made me – and they’ve done this with other people – a knitted version of myself, a doll, that was very anatomically detailed.’
Well then.
Kylie wasn’t the only awkward fangirl encounter Rhod admitted to though, as he elsewhere revealed that one involved a guest on his show.
Pop icon Sophie Ellis-Bextor joined the Growing Pain panel, where Rhod revealed his childhood crush on her mum Janet.
He ended up ‘confessing’ his love for the Blue Peter star in front of Sophie, telling us: ‘That was embarrassing, to be confessing my love to Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s mum back in the day.
‘That was brilliant… I give this little monologue where I talk about teenage crushes and that one just happened to land in the show with Sophie in it.
‘That was a difficult monologue to deliver – my love for her mother.’
Along with his humiliating childhood crush, Rhod also disclosed his embarrassing experiences, claiming that he would be a “strong contender” on his own programme.
He shared: ‘My entire childhood was just one bad decision after another, from bad hairstyles to when I dyed my hair pink by accident, I had a terribly embarrassing flat top, to terrible fashion choices to terrible romantic decisions that saw me getting caught by the police outside the back of my own school, having some teenage fumbling.
‘To bad drinking decisions where I ended up falling through a friend’s porch, where I ended up destroying the whole porch basically, the door, the windows, the vase on the table – I fell through it all.
‘There’s a lot of embarrassing things, a lot of bad decisions, all of which are pretty embarrassing.
‘I’d be a strong contender on this show.’
While his humiliating gaffes and stories may be revealed on this programme, Rhod has also cautioned that his next comedy performance is ‘very dark’ because it is based on personal experiences.
Insisting that he doesn’t worry about being cancelled or having to censor himself for his shows, Rhod went on: ‘My stuff is about me – the last show was about me talking about infertility, talking about my mother’s death from Alzheimer’s, talking about me having a stroke.’
Rhod, who has returned to stage after announcing last year that he was being treated for stage four cancer, continued: ‘The next show is going to be pretty dark and in a similar vein, given what I’ve been through for the last year, it’s going to be pretty dark stuff.
‘But I’m just talking about me, so no I don’t need to change what I’m going to say. I don’t think about it.’
Growing Pains airs Mondays at 9pm on Comedy Central UK.
Source My Celebrity Life.
