CELEBRITY scandals these days are cheap and tawdry. Cast your mind back to harmless, fun scandals of the past, like prostitution and attempted murder:
Jeffrey Archer and the prostitute
Unjustly successful novelist and MP Jeffrey Archer was the victim of the vile smear that he had paid a prostitute for sex, shunning his fragrant, radiant wife Mary. He cleared his name in a high-profile libel trial, only to be jailed for perjury 14 years later because he had lied like a bastard. Still a Lord.
Frank Bough and showbiz sherbert
What did for Bough was not the class-As but the knitwear. Established as a safe, bald, jumper-clad uncle on Breakfast Time, the public couldn’t have been more shocked about his coked-up sex parties. His habit of bragging about the size of his penis and getting spanked made the nation’s Weetabix taste tainted.
Steve McFadden and dogging
Some celeb had to be into the manky world of dogging, so it’s appropriate that it was Poundland hardman Steve McFadden. His ex-girlfriend evoked the glamour of dogging thus: ‘The father of my children is a pervert. Steve loved dirty old men watching us have sex in car parks.’ Forgotten now, as if the entire UK has suppressed thoughts of Steve’s pockmarked arse through the rear window of a Vauxhall Cavalier.
Jeremy Thorpe and murder
Liberal Party leader Thorpe plotted to have ex-lover Norman Scott killed to protect his career. Or, alternatively, by coincidence a hitman shot at Scott and killed his dog. Thorpe wasn’t convicted of anything but the public’s limp-wristed aversion to murder did for him. If only the current Lib Dem leader had Thorpe’s can-do, problem-solving attitude.
Hugh Grant kerb-crawling
The evening went something like this: go to premiere. Disappointed with film, get extremely pissed. Hop in a car in an unfamiliar city. Drive around. Find a prostitute. Attempt to receive a blowjob. Get arrested. Only at this point remember you are going out with Liz Hurley. A night that puts dropping your kebab under a bus into perspective.
Hughie Green and Polaris
Opportunity Knocks host Hughie Green decided to politicise a f**king talent show by broadcasting from a nuclear submarine base to show his support for Thatcher. Unfortunately, ITV bosses sick of his right-wing views promptly ditched both Opportunity Knocks and Hughie, even though they’d given the world Little and Large.
Brothel-creeping Jamie Theakston
And back to the happy, cheerful world of presenting children’s television, a cloudless lifestyle of big smiles and all negativity banished until Live & Kicking’s Jamie was filmed in a Mayfair brothel. Meanwhile, fellow Saturday morning presenter Gail Porter’s arse was projected on Westminster and Zoe Ball married a coke-using alcoholic DJ. Simpler times.
