HURRAH! With a collective sigh of relief, 2020 is finally behind us – the worst year in living memory for most, and a disastrous 12 showbiz months. Despite entertainment being put on hold, there has been no let-up from many of the usual suspects – and a few new first-time offenders – for disgracing and embarrassing themselves.
So just as Her Maj gives her gongs to the great and the good, it falls to me to again award Bizarre’s New Year’s Dishonours list. Back by popular demand are my MBE’s – Most Boring Entertainers, OBE’s – Outstanding British Embarrassments, and special dishonourable mentions. A couple of this lot would benefit from even tighter lockdown restrictions – anything to keep them off TV and radio in 2021 . . .
MBE & OBE
I’M also happy to take one or two gongs away, starting with the p**s artist formerly known as Prince Harry. Or just plain ’Arry, given he’s done a runner.
I liked him when he was hitting the town and making a nuisance of himself – giving the Royal Family a cheeky edge that most of us found pretty endearing. I mean, we pay for them, the least they can do is entertain us a bit.
But now, after shunning the limelight for a quiet life in the US, the shy and retiring couple have decided to sign big-money deals with Netflix and Spotify to punt themselves out to millions. Not bad, I suppose, for a mediocre TV actress and a posh bloke who, despite an expensive education, still seems thick as mince.
It’s clear that, far from wanting a quiet life, these two won’t be happy until they’ve flogged their wares in every corner of the globe. You wouldn’t put it past them having a cosmetics range and a signature scent by the end of 2021. It’ll smell of desperation.
MBEs
THE absurdity of this pair’s wildly over-the-top “we’re on, we’re off, we’re in love, we’re breaking up,” saga, which they shared with the nation at every twist and turn, earns Sam Thompson and Zara McDermott a medal for tedium.
The snorefest started, naturally, on camera in scenes for TV’s Made In Chelsea, where Zara tearfully confessed to having cheated on Sam.
It was so heartbreaking that the only way to get over it was for them to talk it through on a park bench, complete with full hair and make-up and another camera crew.
A series of shamelessly staged photo ops followed, some moody and mournful, others doe-eyed and romantic – all cripplingly boring.
Ex-Love Islander Zara should stick to what she does best, posing in her undercrackers on Instagram. And Sam . . . er, no idea.
MBE
THIS year’s I’m A Celeb . . . was a damp squib.
Despite valiant efforts from all at ITV, and the always brilliant Ant & Dec, it was just too . . . nice.
And nothing summed that up more than watching Giovanna Fletcher winning after three relatively cheery weeks in a lovely setting. I’ve had worse holidays.
The real problem is that Giovanna, who I’m sure is REALLY nice, is now on the way to stardom.
We don’t need celebs to be intolerably pleasant, self-righteous do-gooders who put us to shame. I want them exciting, fallible, wild and reckless. I want to be jealous of their glitzy lives. Save the chat about your terrific parenting (yawn) for the school gate – don’t broadcast it to the nation.
OBE
DOMINIC West put on the acting performance of a lifetime . . . at the gateway to the home he shares with his humiliated wife Catherine after being snapped getting cosy with co-star Lily James in Italy.
I couldn’t care less whether he had an affair. What earns Dom his nod is his smug grin as he just about got away with it and slithered off into hiding, while leaving Lily to face a bucketload of jeers despite being single and with nothing to apologise for.
Later he posed for a series of self-satisfied family photos with his wife and kids – and was pictured at a sit-down meal in breach of lockdown rules. He’s a top tier t***er.
OBE
REMEMBER rapper Slowthai, once tipped to be the next big thing?
Neither does anybody else despite his disgraceful antics at February’s NME Awards. He rightly offered to hand back his prize after grabbing and harassing comedian and host Katherine Ryan.
He can replace it with my gong for Outstanding British Embarrassment.
Slowthai was heckled by the crowd as he leered at Katherine, telling her: “Baby girl, if you want to do something, see me later.”
He later threw a glass at an audience member and had to be restrained by security. What a winner.
OBE
OH RITA, Lovely Rita to borrow from The Beatles, it pains me to do this.
Never dull, beautiful and exciting, Rita is all that a celebrity should be – she lives the life we all wish we did, and doesn’t try to pretend she isn’t loving it.
But sadly, and with a heavy heart, she couldn’t escape this year’s list after her 30th birthday party gaffe of inviting a host of pals to a secret London shindig at the height of the Covid lockdown.
The antics even earned her a ticking off from the Prime Minister – and credit where it’s due, she quickly apologised.
To be fair, she was far from alone in flouting the rules. There could be a whole section dedicated to those caught out, including Kay Burley of Sky News and the PM’s former top man Dominic Cummings.
But Rita became the poster girl for rule-breaking.
Fortunately, she looks much better on a poster than Cummings – whether you need an eye test or not.
SPECIAL GLOBAL EMBARRASSMENT AWARD
IT takes a special kind of eccentricity to plot a manoeuvre from showbiz notoriety to The White House – just ask Donald Trump.
But despite a disappointing year for the outgoing President, even The Donald managed to remember to file his paperwork in time to appear on the ballot papers – unlike rival candidate Kanye West.
The rapper launched his campaign for the Oval Office at an odd rally in July, in a move even embarrassments-in-chief The Kardashians couldn’t get on board with – and he only managed to land 60,000 votes from a total of 160million. At least Kanye didn’t tweet: “We won this election, big.”
We’ll see how he gets on in the 2024 campaign he’s now planning.
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
IT was the news many of us had been waiting for more than a decade to hear – The Kardashians are ending their long-running fly-on-the-wall reality show Keeping Up With The Kardashians.
It was an announcement clearly worthy of special recognition in my annual dishonours.
The show spawned the global careers of Kim, Kylie, Kendall, Kris, Kourtney, Khloe and probably a whole load of others like Kevin, Kieran and Kenneth who presumably didn’t make the final edit – and brought the world about 700,000 tons of landfill-worthy merchandise which will still be biodegrading long after the last of them is washed up and forgotten.
But if it seemed too good to be true, it was – they’ve already announced a load more TV tosh coming to a screen near you imminently and all about, you guessed it, them.
Sounds like a lot more Krap.
A SPECIAL dishonourable mention goes to Kylie Jenner – who spectacularly announced herself as a “billionaire” – only for experts at business bible Forbes to quickly point out that she definitely, definitely isn’t.
If it’s as simple as that, I’m a billionaire too.
I’VE always loved Bill Bailey’s comedy but I had no idea I’d come to admire his tango and foxtrot. He’s an inspiration – and seems a top bloke. It was especially satisfying to see him triumph over irritating Jaimie Laing and ultra-confident stage school sort Maisie Smith.
ADELE has always been brilliant but she has rarely shocked us so much as when she unveiled her astonishing seven stone weight loss.
BLACK Panther star Chadwick Boseman’s death at just 43 was a tragedy. While secretly battling cancer it also later emerged that he also carried out astonishing acts of kindness. A true superhero.
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