Memoirs of a Fruitcake Read online

  This, I’m sorry to say, is the opposite of a lot of UK artists, who consider the interview circuit a bind that is beneath them and will do anything they can to get out of any such commitment – or at least get it over with as soon as possible, while looking awkward and uncomfortable throughout. Sell, sell, sell you fools and don’t worry so much about what we might think of the real you. Alright, you’ll never be as articulate as you are when reading from those wonderful scripts you’re given, but we know that and it’s OK, so lighten up.

  It was no surprise, then, that the three young stars of what was to become a worldwide hit, not to mention a three-picture multi-million-dollar franchise, turned out to be a chat-show host’s dream. They were charming, funny, sweet, cheeky and oh so positive, another American trait which we need to adopt. In short I couldn’t have asked for more, but here’s another thing, I wasn’t going to have to – more was going to ask for me.

  Along with Shannon Elizabeth, the actress who played the ridiculously hot Russian exchange student (surely no girl on earth has been that hot in real life – have they?), Tara Reid was the chief totty in the hippest flick of the summer.

  After TFI was over, I almost always followed the same routine. I ran downstairs to my dressing room where I would get changed as quickly as I could and remove my slap with a couple of wet wipes whilst having a quick debrief with the producers and our writer, Danny Baker. Following this, we would go en masse back upstairs to the bar, or across the road to the pub.

  This week had been declared a pub week. So there I was, walking down the corridor leading to the stage door, the corridor where all the dressing rooms were. As I neared the stage door, I heard what sounded like an American female calling my name. I stopped and turned around.

  ‘Hello, did somebody call me?’ I shouted back down the busy thoroughfare.

  A moment later, the blonde bob of Ms Reid swung round her dressing-room door.

  ‘Hey, Chris. It was me, Tara.’

  ‘Hi Tara,’ I replied. ‘What can I do for you?’

  Note to reader: Alright now, calm down and listen up because this next bit really did happen – you have to believe me. I promise I wouldn’t bother wasting your time, and mine, writing about it, if it did not. This is exactly what Tara said next.

  ‘Do you know any good pubs that might be fun to go to?’

  As you can probably imagine, upon hearing this, I had to check to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating and hadn’t died and gone to heaven.

  ‘Excuse me?’ I said, just to make sure.

  Plates 1

  Sir Dicky B, checking if my heart’s still beating after I’d just paid him £87 million for his radio station

  Me with Gazza and Danny Baker at Virgin

  What could possibly go wrong?

  Guinness for breakfast anyone?

  Saying hi to Stephen Fry

  With the oh-so-cool Peter O’Toole

  Dennis the Menace I have your jumper.

  Lots of hair, both me and Cher

  St Suzi slogging it out with Mr Nightmare

  ‘Mmmm, I bet most of this hair is gone ten years from now’

  Anyone have any idea why we’re here?

  There’s no better chin-rest than an ex-Spice Girl

  Gazza you can stop sucking my cheek now.

  The sales brochure for Lionel Richie’s house that we bought in LA

  A Grappa with a Granny at 8 o’clock in the morning in Venice

  Boxing Day on a speedboat in Venice.

  I’ve just lost a £15million court case, me!

  Hats off, lips on

  Billie marries Steve Davis

  Who do I make this out to?

  Private jets always make me this red

  WANTED: Four blokes for looking far too British

  Ugly bloke wins ‘Can I touch beautiful girl competition’ — again

  Pond Life, I dig myself another hole

  Billie on the edge

  Enzo my German Shepherd, ‘Do I push the mad ginger bloke in or not?’

  Billie put the knife down – please!

  Billie – that’s the girl I fell in love with

  Billie goes topless

  ‘Do you know where there are any good, fun pubs?’ No, this was definitely real. Tara Reid was really saying these words out loud and to me.

  And there was more.

  ‘The boys want to go to a restaurant but I’m not into that. Perhaps you could show me a few – if you’re not busy that is.’

  Here’s what the voice in my head said next.

  ‘WHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?’

  The thing is, as I have already mentioned at some length, pubs were my thing. I knew some of the best in the land and, as a result of several years of enthusiastic hanging out in such establishments, was a welcome patron in all of them.

  Here’s what I actually said whilst attempting to stifle my excitement.

  ‘Tara, if you want pubs, you’ve come to the right man. I am Mr Pub. I’m not proud of it, but it’s true. I’ll give you all the pubs, drinks, stories and characters that go with them.’

  ‘Really?’ she said.

  ‘Really really,’ I nodded.

  ‘Oh my goodness, that’s so exciting, that’s so sweet of you. Can you wait five minutes?’

  ‘Tara, to take you to the pub I would happily wait several years.’ I didn’t actually say this, I’m nowhere near cool enough but it was what I was thinking. As it happened, I think I just smiled as if I had lost the ability to speak – which

  I had.

  The result of this situation was not one night with this minx of the movie world but the next three!

  Yes, three nights and three days with Tara bloomin’ blinkin’ Reid.

  Tara saw more of London’s pubs in the next seventy-two hours than I believe any US citizen has done before. We didn’t leave each other’s side until her car turned up to take her back to Heathrow airport on the Monday morning.

  I swear the only piece of promotion Tara Reid ever did in Britain for the original American Pie movie was TFI Friday because having only arrived in the country a few hours before, she then went on the missing list for the rest of her engagements. I know because I was with her the whole time.

  None of her publicists knew where she was and neither did her two co-stars, who continued the press junket in her absence.

  And do you know? I’ve never heard from her since. Not a word, but that’s kind of perfect.

  I do wonder, however, if she ever recalls the crazy pub crawl she embarked upon with the ginger-haired talk-show host over in London that time.

  What do you reckon – probably not, eh?

  Ha ha.

  And no, we didn’t sleep together.

  PART TWO

  WHEN BILLIE MET CHRIS

  TOP

  10

  WAYS TO KNOW YOU’RE IN LOVE

  10 When you feel like you could kiss her for ever

  9 When love-making takes precedence over orgasms

  8 When holding hands feels electric

  7 When her breath feels like it might burn you

  6 When you find other girls invisible, even on hot sunny days, when most of the female population is naked

  5 When you see her as the little girl she once was

  4 When you see how kind and considerate she is towards other people

  3 When you see her laugh

  2 When you see her cry and it kills you inside

  1 When you see her give birth to your child

  TFI FRIDAY WAS ALSO The venue for my first meeting with Billie Piper – the pop-starlet slice of perfection who was to become my second wife.

  The moment Billie was confirmed as a guest, we were all very keen to meet her and see what the young firecracker from Swindon had to say for herself. It was generally accepted that there was a lot more to this girl than just another saccharine-sweet chart sensation who found herself splashed on the front of the teeny magazines week in, week out. The word on the stre
et was that, despite her tender years, Billie was a girl who knew how to party in the fast lane and had the stories to back it up.

  I couldn’t wait to talk to her. There are some people you just get a feeling about and Billie was one of those. Whenever

  I’d seen her being interviewed, I felt maybe there was something she wasn’t telling us.

  Billie’s appearance on TFI involved the usual walk along the gantry through the crowd to rapturous applause and excited whoops and hollers, followed by a pacey chat, fleshed out with a few clips and photos. In Billie’s case it also included a spontaneous exchange of clothing behind a pair of curtains, and it was this exchange that piqued my interest even further.

  The curtains in question framed a window that looked out across the Thames, and formed the backdrop to all the interviews that took place at the desk. At some point during our conversation, though for the life of me I can’t remember how or why, Bills and I suddenly found ourselves giggling behind the cover of those famous but dusty old drapes whilst swapping my shirt for her vest. No doubt the TV audience wondered what the heck was going on.

  When we reappeared I could be seen busting out of Billie’s slinky black skin-tight top, whilst she looked slightly dishevelled but sexy as hell in one of those garish Liberty-patterned shirts I seemed to wear all the time back then.

  Whatever the reason for this sartorial tomfoolery, it definitely broke the ice between us. It reminded me of the secret tent moment I had enjoyed with Kim Wilde back on The Big Breakfast almost a decade before, when I’d managed to kiss her just before we went live on air – a situation that resulted in us becoming an item for a while.

  Clandestine moments like these, when the audience is watching but can’t actually see what’s going on, really do seem to hold plenty of truck when it comes to persuading various gorgeous members of the female race to become more interested in the television host trying to woo them. I think it’s the element of danger that’s exciting, but without the risk of anything really bad happening.

  Billie, having to my knowledge never exchanged clothes with any other interviewer before me, had made a statement. At least that’s how I saw it. Girls don’t swap clothes with blokes they don’t like; everyone knows that, not even for the sake of a good bit of PR. I concluded therefore that Billie must like me and I knew for certain that I liked her.

  ‘There’s something in this,’ I thought to myself. ‘This could go further.’

  She was only eighteen, but she was a feisty young woman who had seen much more than such tender years would normally allow. And yes, at thirty-four I was almost twice her age but I was still far young enough not to have to worry about being perceived as a dirty old man just quite yet. Consequently if the chance ever presented itself, I would have no hesitation in pursuing Ms Piper further.

  My chance came a fortnight later, when Billie, who was still promoting her latest single, appeared on my radio show. Once again we got on like a house on fire, and this time I managed to hand her my phone number and suggest she give me a call.

  When I say ‘my’ phone number, what I actually gave Bill was my close pal Webbo’s number, because I didn’t own a mobile. I thought they were the devil back then and in many ways still do, though there’s no denying their usefulness at times such as this.

  A quick word about Webbo. I met him in a bar in Tokyo when I was being filmed for my disastrous golf programme,

  Tee Time (that’s another story). Webbo was one of the film crew, we got on famously from the off and he has since become a valued friend and colleague. In fact, he’s been solid as a rock during the most recent quarter of my life.

  With Webbo’s help I was now contactable 24 hours a day – if he was able to stick with me, that was. This could have been pushing it, as Webbo’s lovely but long-suffering wife Lisa had put up with a lot from both of us recently. This included one week when her husband went to work on a Monday morning and didn’t get back home again until eight days later. This kind of behaviour had now tailed off, though a few selectively requested late passes were still sometimes available, depending on which way the wind was blowing.

  ‘Tell Lisa,’ I instructed Webbo, ‘that of all the things I’ve ever asked you to do, this is by far the most important. Inform her that if you stay with me till Billie calls I promise never to keep you out again.’

  ‘This is not gonna be easy,’ said Webbo, whilst simultaneously biting his lip and stroking his chin like a dodgy builder pricing up a job. We both knew we were skating on very thin ice where Lisa was concerned but I begged him to give it a shot.

  ‘Let me have a cigarette first, then I’ll give her a ring.’ He was gonna have a go. What a hero. Webbo went outside, and five minutes later he was back.

  ‘She’s not having it, not this time. She says I can stay out until this afternoon but then I have to go home.’

  This would almost certainly result in disaster. Billie was filming Top of the Pops all day and was more likely to ring in the evening, if at all. I had to think and I had to think fast.

  ‘Webbo, what does Lisa want?’

  ‘What do you mean, what does she want?’

  ‘In life – what does she desire?’

  ‘Well she’d love a car; she’s always talking about those Suzuki jeeps.’

  ‘Right, perfect – phone her back and tell her I’ll buy her one. All she has to do in return is allow you to stay with me until Billie Piper rings on that phone. We’ll also put a time limit on it; forty-eight hours maximum. Any way up, Lisa gets her car.’

  ‘You can’t do that,’ said Webbo, laughing his head off.

  But I was deadly serious.

  A second phone call was made to Lisa.

  ‘Deal,’ said Webbo, upon his return.

  Webbo has since informed me that over the next few hours I was so busy praying for Billie to call that the rest of our schedule went out of the window – much to the chagrin of my other colleagues. It also happened to be the day of our team’s Christmas lunch. To which I paid no more than a fleeting visit.

  I really was smitten by Billie. I convinced myself – like a child wishing for a Christmas present – that the more I thought about her, the more likely she would be to appear. Although I didn’t have a lot to go on at that stage, I couldn’t help feeling that we were very similar and perhaps some of the same things were missing in both of our lives. Maybe we were destined to get together, I fantasised.

  I know this is a strange, almost weird, conclusion to come to after meeting someone briefly just twice, but I had an overwhelming sense that I might be right.

  Praying sometimes works and it did that day. Billie called me the same afternoon, suggesting we meet for a drink that night. I might have been one Suzuki jeep down, but a phone call like that was worth ten of the things. And besides, I still needed Webbo as my wingman.

  What a lot of people don’t know about Bill is that she was originally an actress, not a singer. Her whole pop career was a happy, or unhappy – depending which way you look at it – accident.

  Smash Hits had come up with the brainwave of finding a kid to be the face of their magazine, a visage that captured the very essence of what they wanted to convey. After scouring all the stage schools and talent agencies looking for their perfect pin-up, they struck gold when they discovered the enormous smile of a little girl called Billie Paul Piper, at the Sylvia Young Theatre School. She was an instant smash (forgive the pun) with the readers.

  As I have said, Billie was an actress, but she could sing, and when it came to dancing she was like a little brunette female Michael Jackson – she really was that good. She had everything the magazine was looking for, and by the age of fifteen a record deal and the first of a string of number-one and top-ten hits.

  Impressive stuff, and very time consuming.

  From the moment Billie was spotted she had to kiss goodbye to what was left of her childhood. Show business doesn’t do childhood. You wanna be a kid? Stay at school; forget about the bright lights
and study. You can’t have both.

  It was our mutual alienation from the real world – albeit for different reasons – that would play a key part in us coming together, but not before my crash-course in how to date a pop star.

  Our first date was a marathon, not for Bill but for me. She was recording an appearance at the BBC’s Elstree Studios and suggested we meet back in town afterwards. By ‘afterwards’, it transpired, she meant 11.30 that night.

  Two things here. Firstly, this was a week day and I had to be up at 5.30 am to host The Breakfast Show on Virgin the next morning, and secondly, I had usually been out drinking for close to ten hours by that time. Such indulgence would more than likely render me no use to anyone – especially a sparkly young ball of energy like Billie.

  I hadn’t had a sober afternoon for years. I had forgotten how to. I had tailored my life to suit my drinking and to all intents and purposes it worked, but that day my usual routine was going to have to change. I still drank, of course, and Webbo still accompanied me, but our usual routine had to be tempered.

  Where we would normally sup and stagger, we stared and sipped, thus putting off getting drunk for as long as possible. Drink is a time killer rather than a time filler, and without our deadliest weapon 11.30 pm seemed an awfully long way off.

  I’ve experienced some days that have dragged before, but this one was way up there with the most interminable of them all. I lost count of the number of times I looked up at the clock in whichever bar we had moved on to, only to witness time appearing to stand still before me, the opposite of what usually happened.