The day Angelina Jolie asked if my dress would unzip, by Claire Balding
SHE has been happily settled with her female partner for more than a decade.
Even so, Clare Balding could not deny feeling something of a frisson when she met Angelina Jolie.
The sports presenter, who tweeted a photo of the meeting, recalled how Miss Jolie paid her a flirtatious compliment, admiring the zip ornaments on her top.
She told chat show host Alan Carr: ‘She said I had a nice top. She said “Oh, you can unzip those?” I remained very calm when she said that. I wore my purple brogues especially, but she did not look at them.’
Of the slender Miss Jolie, she added: ‘I put my arm around her back and I thought, “I must not touch her because she might break”. She did not touch me either . . . She was lovely though. She is beautiful.’
And the 4 -year-old joked: ‘Brad was not there. I did not ask her about Brad. I probably should have done.’
Carr pointed out that Miss Jolie, 9, who is married to Brad Pitt, is bisexual and has dated both men and women in the past.
Miss Balding, who hosted the Paralympics for Channel 4, interviewed Miss Jolie for a Radio 2 Christmas Day special. She said they discussed the actress’s plans to persuade US TV to show more disabled sport.
Miss Balding later spoke about gay people’s role in sport, saying: ‘I think we will see a gay Premier League player before a female one. But my gay-dar is not that good. I assume everyone is gay until they tell me they are not.
‘I was not massively surprised when [swimmer] Ian Thorpe came out. I know him quite well so I was not surprised.’
Miss Balding is in a civil partnership with former newsreader Alice Arnold. They plan to convert the partnership into a marriage.