Pastry chef sues Fat Duck for wrist pain
» Sir Elton’s shock verdict on star pal » Anguish at his drug rehab refusal
INJURY Sharon Anderson
A CHEF is suing Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck restaurant for more than £200,000, claiming working there gave her RSI.
Pastry chef Sharon Anderson, 28, says she churned out thousands of chocolate playing cards and whisky wine gums a day from 7am to 6pm.
In documents lodged with London’s High Court, she claims she was given work which was “too fast, arduous and repetitive”, causing pains in her wrist.
She says the RSI led to depression and she has not been able to work since leaving in November 2015.
The restaurant denies negligence and says her duties were common to “fine dining restaurants”.
Ms Anderson, 28, of Letterkenny, County Donegal, Ireland, started at the Fat Duck in Bray, Berkshire, in June 2014.
SIR Elton John has said pal George Michael felt uncomfortable about being gay and didn’t want to be alive.
The rock legend also talked of his pain at failing to convince George in the last years of his life to go to rehab as he battled his emotions and drug demons.
Sir Elton said he agreed with fellow recovering addict Ozzy Osbourne that George did not “want to be here”.
A coroner concluded Wham! singer George, who died aged 53 at his home on Christmas Day in 2016, was killed by heart and liver disease.
Sir Elton, 72, who has been sober for three decades after years of rampant drugs and alcohol abuse, tried several times to help his friend beat his addictions.
He said: “[George] couldn’t get it. And he resented the fact that I had hinted that maybe he change his life a little bit and he’d be happier if he tried something else. The person has actually got to want it.
“It’s like me in the end; I really wanted it. I had two alternatives – one, to die, and one to live, and I wanted to live.
“But that’s the difference, if you want it, and poor George didn’t want it.”
Sir Elton, who was speaking to his friend Sharon Osbourne, wife of rocker Ozzy, on her US TV show The Talk, added: “I remember talking to you the day [George] died. I phoned you, and Ozzy got on the phone and he said, ‘He didn’t want to be here’. And I thought that’s the most
succinct,
Ozzy and his wife Sharon apt thing: he didn’t want to be here. He was so uncomfortable in his skin about being gay even though he said he wasn’t.”
He added: “We all make terrible mistakes and some of us are addicts when we are born and we have to battle that addiction. But you can turn the corner and you can get help and it’s been the most wonderful decision I’ve made.”
He likened his fight to get clean with George’s situation and seemed to take a subtle swipe at Fadi Fawaz, who was George’s boyfriend and found his body at the singer’s house in Goring, Oxon.
Sir Elton said: “Part of your recovery was helping people who wanted help. But also, other people around me didn’t want me to be sober: my mother, my personal assistant, my manager, because they lost control or they began to lose control.” George publicly revealed he was gay at the age of 34.
Sir Elton, who helped singer Robbie Williams in his drugs battle, also spoke about getting Italian fashion designer Donatella Versace, 64, into rehab.
He said: “If Donatella can get sober and I can get sober, then anyone can.
“[She] came to a concert and we knew she had a problem and she would dodge me like a bullet because she didn’t want me to see her. She was in a terrible state.
“She was crying, but it was a cry for help. And I said, ‘Let’s do it. She’s ready.’ And it was a hilarious event because it was not normal.
“She’s in a $100,000 ballgown, and she resisted slightly and she went. It was very funny.
“She was like, ‘I will come, but I don’t want any oily food.’ But she’s been sober ever since.”
SIR ELTON ON HIS EFFORTS TO HELP HIS CLOSE FRIEND GEORGE
Fadi, left, & George embrace
He resented the fact I hinted that maybe he change his life a little bit and he’d be happier