Man of the year? Ten years ago I was stacking the shelves at M&S...
TO go from stacking shelves to playing packed arenas throughout the globe is a remarkable rise by anybody’s standards.
And on Tuesday – exactly ten years after leaving his minimum wage job at Marks & Spencer – Dumfries-born DJ Calvin Harris topped it off by scooping the Solo Artist gong at GQ’s Men of the Year Awards.
He said: ‘This week ten years ago was when I left Marks & Spencer Simply Food in Clapham South where I carried out such tasks as date-rotating sandwiches and moving the salmon.’
And the 32-year-old, who in the past year has earned an estimated $63million (£47m), didn’t miss an opportunity to take a thinly veiled swipe at pop star ex-girlfriend Taylor Swift, with whom he split in May.
Thanking his manager in his acceptance speech, Harris mentioned that
they ‘had been through a lot and discovered a lot this year.’
After the awards bash at London’s Tate Modern, Harris said the couple attempted to avoid a ‘media circus’ following their split but ended up experiencing the opposite.
He said: ‘It was completely the wrong instinct. I was protecting what I see as my one talent in the world being belittled.
‘It felt like things were piling on top of me and that was when I snapped. I’m not good at being a celebrity, but when it ended, all hell broke loose.’
However, Harris, born Adam Richard Wiles, appears to be moving on from his heartache.
He was spotted leaving a party in Los Angeles on Saturday night armin-arm with his rumoured new girlfriend – 26-year-old Mexican actress and model Eiza Gonzalez.