DID THEY REALLY TELL US THAT?!

Earnest confessions, wry humour... and some priceless predictions. Celebrities from Hollywood to Hollyoaks have poured their hearts out to us over the years – and here’s a selection of their most memorable quotes

‘I love Jamie to bits, but I’d be a fool to think he’ll never leave me.’ LOUISE REDKNAPP (March 2009)

‘Simon [Cowell] and I certainly flirt with each other. We’re definitely good friends, and he is a very warm, generous person. I thank my lucky stars every day for this job. Simon could have asked anyone, but he chose me.’ DANNII MINOGUE (December 2007, when she was a judge on The X Factor and five years before their affair was made public) ‘ Faithful? If you’re with the right person it’s easy, but if you’re with the wrong one it’s almost impossible. My marriage to Melania is going to be forever, so I had better be faithful to her.’ DONALD TRUMP (April 2006)

DERMOT O’LEARY

‘We had a photo of Simon Cowell he’d given me on our mantelpiece but we had to take it down. We were trying to sell our house and my wife said, “Take it down! People will think we’re insane.”’ (January 2017)

MICHAEL PARKINSON

‘My parents had never been abroad, so I asked them where they wanted to go and for some reason they said Lanzarote. After the holiday we go to meet them and my dad’s walking behind my mother. He’s obviously in the doghouse. She said, “I’ve never been so upset in all my life with that father of yours.” They’d got on this British Airways jet and the steward comes up to my dad and says, “Would you like a drink?” My dad says, “Aye, I’ll have a pint of bitter.” And the guy says, “We only serve champagne.” My father says, “Champagne? I can’t afford champagne.” The steward tells him it’s free, so the old man says, “Free? Oh well, pour it out and bring on the dancing girls.” My mother said, “In the end he got so drunk he offered to wash up.”’ (July 1995)

RUBY WAX

‘I was on Donald Trump’s jet and when he told me he wanted to be president one day I laughed heartily. He shouted, “Take the jet down!”, landed in

Nebraska and threw me off.’ (May 2017)

JANE FONDA

‘ Making love to Ted Turner was like being in Versailles surrounded by spectacular lit-up fountains. He’s a very sexy man. But the question I have to ask myself is why did I have to choose men who were so highly sexed?’ (September 2017)

SIMON COWELL

‘God, no. I couldn’t have children. If I had them drawing on the walls I’d go nuts.’ (May 2009)

CHARLIE SHEEN

‘When I was 20, I decided that if I ever got famous

I’d bring back a taste of the old wild Hollywood ways. I was getting a lot of attention, making a lot of money and no door was closed to me. Everything had been too conservative for a long time. There were no hellraisers around so I decided to be one.’ (February 2005)

JOAN COLLINS

‘This is my longest marriage. Twelve years. Twelve years a slave!’ (August 2014)

ROBBIE WILLIAMS

‘No, I won’t be doing The X Factor. It’s a risk I don’t need to take right now. You are at the behest of a massive juggernaut that doesn’t have to bow to the direction you want to go in, and I also don’t think they can afford me in England.’ (November 2013)

MICHELLE PFEIFFER

‘When I grow up I want to be Judi Dench.’ (August 2007)

LILY ALLEN

‘ I exist in a world that’s really confusing to me. When I try and say something honestly, people make me look like an idiot.’ ( February 2009)

DAVID GEST

‘I can’t get to sleep at night unless I’m on Liza’s left breast. I like her right breast, but I’m addicted to her left breast.’ (June 2003)

JON BON JOVI

‘We named our son Romeo thinking it was the most beautiful, original name in the world, only to find out David Beckham had already chosen it.’ (December 2004)

MICHAEL CAINE

On learning, after his mother died, that he had a half-brother David.

The illegitimate son of his mother Ellen, David was an epileptic and had been put in an asylum. ‘Every time there was a new nurse my mother used to make them swear they would never tell anybody that David was Michael Caine’s brother. She feared the scandal of having an illegitimate brother in an asylum would destroy my career.

She was still protecting me, which breaks my heart.’ (January 1999)

ANDY WILLIAMS

‘In the 60s I was a wild man. I drank two bottles of champagne a night, went to bed at 6am, had girlfriends, smoked some pot, took a bit of cocaine. Then, after a while, I thought, “What am I doing? This isn’t so great.” So I stopped.’ (July 2007)

MICHAEL DOUGLAS

About the 25-year age gap with his wife Catherine: ‘If I forget a name or a date, she’ll look me in the eye and I’ll say, “Yes, dear, I know.” We joke about when I reach my 80s and she’s wheeling me around and I’m saying “Whoa!

Where are we going?” And she’ll say, “Cartier, darling, it’s your favourite store. Remember?” It’s important to keep a sense of humour about these things.’ (October 2016)

LEN GOODMAN

‘Life is a bit like falling over on Strictly. It’s not how you fall down, it’s how you get up.’ (December 2016)

ANTHONY HOPKINS

‘I’m nearly 70, and you get to the point where you realise that it’s no big deal. It isn’t brain surgery, it’s only acting. I still wake up in the morning, look into the mirror, and see the same, boring old face looking back at me.’ (December 2007)

NICOLA WALKER

‘I worry that people might get sick of me, but what can you do?’ (January 2017)

DANIEL DAY-LEWIS

‘I was 15 when my father died. I ended up taking enough pills to make me hallucinate for a fortnight and was taken to a mental hospital. It was a horribly grim experience. I only got out of the place by giving one of the greatest performances of my life. I fooled them into thinking I was perfectly sane.’ (February 2008)

DOLLY PARTON

‘ I always wear heels around the house.

‘David and I are not going to adopt a child. If we adopted a child with the high profile that we have it would be a nightmare for the child and I don’t want to put anyone through that. And I don’t have the patience to be honest with you. I don’t want to be a 70-year-old with a 20-year-old and wondering if they are doing drugs and stuff like that.’ ELTON JOHN (December 2001)

I’m such a short little thing I can’t reach my kitchen cabinets. But I have tennis shoes with little rhinestones that I slip on if I exercise.’ (August 2011)

SIR PATRICK MOORE

‘We’re one of many millions of inhabited worlds, I’m sure of that.’ (March 2011)

DECLAN DONNELLY

‘ Before Ali and I got married, Ant said to me, “Married life isn’t that different; just better.”’ (September 2011)

BRUCE FORSYTH

‘Simon Cowell has a go at Strictly occasionally, but I have the secret weapon. I met his mother in Selfridges and she told me Strictly was her favourite show!’ (September 2013)

CHARLOTTE RAMPLING

‘ I know I have this power over men but I daren’t let it loose in real life. I know what I could do with it. It’s very dangerous. I’d never walk down the street in high heels and a tight dress.’ (October 1994)

RONNIE CORBETT

‘I first met Ronnie Barker in 1963 when I was working behind the bar at the Buckstone Club and he came in. He always swore I was standing on a box to serve drinks that day, but I wasn’t. I didn’t need to. It was a very low bar.’ (September 2006)

ROGER MOORE

‘I was playing Henry II of France opposite Lana Turner when my horse threw me off and I was knocked out. When I came to they were trying to cut my armour off and Lana was looking down saying, “Is his c*** alright?”’ (November 2003)

GRAHAM NORTON

‘I’m 52, single and feel like I’ve failed. But then I look at

‘Because older people can easily get curvature of the spine and will probably lose height, when I do the washing up at my low sink I stand upright. I stand up straight to watch TV and when I’m cleaning my teeth. So at least I’m a 70-year-old who stands up straight.’ CLIFF RICHARD (October 2011)

the relationships people around me have and find myself asking, “Really? That doesn’t look like winning to me.”’ (September 2015)

JAMIE LEE CURTIS

‘I’m oddlooking, and that’s fine with me.’ (December 2004)

SIAN PHILLIPS

‘My beauty’s been a handicap. It’s a terrible drawback, a real nuisance.’ (April 1996)

GERI HALLIWELL

‘We didn’t invent Girl Power. People say we did but it was around long before us. I’ve been thinking recently that it probably goes back to Cleopatra.’ (November 2012)

JULIE WALTERS

‘I was like a Jack Russell when I was young – overexcited by everything.’ (February 2011)

TERENCE CONRAN

‘Food and sex are the two most important things in life. Food can be wonderful, it can also be absolutely dreary. The same with sex really.’ (May 1997)

KYLIE MINOGUE

After breaking up with Spanish model Andres Velencoso. ‘I thought he was The One. But I’ve thought that a few times.’ (March 2014)

SHANE FILAN

‘ It doesn’t matter how much money you make, it has to last 40 years because we might stop working tomorrow. We’ve all been more careful in recent years, putting money away for a rainy day.’ ( December 2004, eight years before the Westlife star went bankrupt with £18m losses)

BOB HOSKINS

‘Do I look like the sort of bloke who has a bleedin’ swimming pool?’ (November 2009)