OLLY MURS ON
Halfway through the first lockdown, Olly Murs sat down one night with his girlfriend to have a serious conversation. The singer and new love Amelia Tank, isolating together at Olly’s Essex mansion, had been keeping fans amused by pulling cheeky pranks on each other in a series of hilarious TikTok videos.
They included Amelia Sellotaping Olly’s phone to his head after he threw her in the pool by her hair, and Olly soaking her with a giant water gun after she smashed an egg on his face.
Another showed Olly blasting his girlfriend with an air horn after she woke him up by smacking him across the face.
They were getting millions of views. And as the prank wars rumbled on, the practical jokes were getting more brutal.
“I’m a bit cheeky and I’ve always been someone who likes to have fun,” says Olly. “At home we were a bit bored and I posted a couple of videos having a bit of a laugh. We didn’t realise the reaction we were going to get. They went viral so we thought we should do some more.
“We just had fun, lots of people were messaging me, celebrities, newspapers, TV shows – everyone was talking about them. But in the end we did stop and say, hang on, things are getting out of hand.
“Me and Amelia sat down to talk about it and said, ‘Someone’s going to get hurt. The world’s going through a pandemic, I don’t think one of us wants to be in hospital because we’ve broken our arm or leg because of a prank.’
“We were doing so many pranks – and there were many more we didn’t post because they didn’t work or weren’t funny. And we thought it was time we stopped before something went wrong.”
By then the former X Factor star also faced a backlash and was forced to apologise after a rather rude prank on his girlfriend involving a Pringles tube. Olly said he only ever wanted to make people smile.
“It got rid of the boredom. I didn’t want to sing live sessions on Instagram like other singers were doing, that’s not the type of artist I am. I’m an entertainer not a performer, and that was my way of entertaining my fans.”
But while the prank ceasefire in Olly’s house is still holding, he insists that’s not the last fans will see of his capers.
The singer, who’s back on TV tomorrow as a coach for the first semi-final of The Voice, says: “I only didn’t prank the other judges because we have to keep our distance, but I would have if I’d been allowed. “They’d better watch out next year.” Even so, he still wants the last laugh – by becoming the first judge to win the show three times, and all in a row.
Olly, 36, has won two of the three years he has been on the show. Tom Jones and former judge Ricky Wilson have also won two, while will.i.am, who has been a judge every year since the first series a decade ago, has only won once, he is told in our chat.
“Sorry, can you say that again?” teases Olly, putting his ear
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ON THE BUTTON Olly wants Voice win close to his Zoom screen. Ribbing his fellow judges for being unable to beat him for two years, he says his experience on the X Factor, when he came second in 2009, means he has the “winning formula”. “It makes me laugh when they say they’re not competitive, that I’m the only one who really wants to win. I know that deep down they really want to win, they just don’t admit it. “When in the past two years they came up to me and said congratulations, I could tell they didn’t want to say it. I’m not afraid to sit there and brag.” Olly’s journey since finding fame on The X Factor hasn’t all been plain sailing. The singer fell