Alan Carr: My ‘trapped seagull’ voice made me bullies’ target
IT HAS helped to make him one of British TV’s most bankable stars, but Alan Carr reveals today how as a child he hated his ‘awful’ high-pitched voice and was bullied because of it.
‘I had the most awful thing when I was about 12 or 13,’ he tells BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. ‘I did drama and we said, “Let’s watch the playback” … I was like, “What’s that voice?” My voice soared like a seagull with its wing trapped somewhere.
‘I am smiling now, but it was like a punch in the stomach. Why didn’t anyone tell me? But, of course, they were. The bullies were telling me every day. It was just awful.’
Carr, 42, best known as the presenter of Channel 4’s Chatty Man, says the bullying meant he became a lonely boy but he does not feel like a victim because his tormentors were ‘losers’.
He says today’s youngsters suffer far worse than he did: ‘Kids today go through hell and the bullying doesn’t just finish [after school], it’s all online now. There’s kids going into school with knives.’
The comedian says he now realises the value of his distinctive voice. ‘I am stuck with this voice,’ he tells host Lauren Laverne. ‘It is weird when I do stand-up. I am a bit like Mariah Carey, I have to protect it. If I don’t reach those high notes people complain.’
Carr says he has been fortunate to find fame: ‘Everyday I thank my lucky stars for this life... I do pinch myself.’
Carr, who chooses an Argos catalogue as his book for his Desert Island, pays tribute to singer Adele, who officiated at his wedding earlier this year to his husband, Paul Drayton. ‘She got ordained and married us in her back garden,’ he says. ‘The best day of my life. She organised it all and paid for it. She is wonderful.’
After choosing the track Do What You Gotta Do by Roberta Flack, he describes problems in his relationship. ‘We had a bit of a tough time,’ he says. ‘He went to a treatment centre for alcohol and I was feeling very low. I heard this and I listened to it. Do it for yourself – the lyrics. It just came to me at the right point.’