Loud and a giant pain…no, not just Gemma Collins, Piers Morgan too
HARD as I know it is, we must somehow come to terms this morning with the idea of a world without a Gemma Collins sex tape.
It’s going to be deleted, she promised us last night, before David Attenborough even gets to add the voiceover.
So I suppose we should be grateful for the small mercies offered by Piers Morgan’s Life Stories: Gemma Collins, a nightmare ITV pairing that was hard not to take personally, or even tell apart at times.
Gemma Collins is smart enough to realise, however, that in the TV world, you keep your friends close and your enemas closer.
Having watched Piers, she knows that if you turn down his advances, like Madonna, he’ll be on your case for ever.
But submit to the format and he’ll love you with a leg-humping devotion.
Vile reaction
It’s one of his major failings as a broadcaster and the reason why he’s such a pushover on Life Stories, where he’ll overlook a lot of flaws and his own contradictions — including the fact he recently denounced “all talentless cretins who appear on reality TV” — just so long as he gets some tears, titillation and more airtime.
First, though, he had to try to establish what the hell Gemma was doing there.
“Can you sing?”
Hell no.
“Can you dance?”
Only as gracefully as the next tumble-dryer.
Can she predict the future?
“I might be in Hollywood in ten years’ time and too busy to take your calls, baby.”
So she can’t do that either.
Somewhere in the middle of this rainbow chase, however, we did discover she’d made the sex tape and planned setting up a pay-per-view system that could’ve netted anywhere between, ooh, £4 and £5.50, until Chunk’s intervention.
And as long as she’s good to her word, I’ll remain eternally grateful. The real purpose of this visit, however, was to establish her victimhood credentials. Gemma, you see, has been sent some empty death threats from the Twitter cesspit.
No one deserves this vile reaction, obviously.
But equally, Piers and Gemma should stop being shocked by social media outrages. Stupidity and threats are Twitter’s currency and if they’re serious about wanting it to stop, the obvious solution would be to quit the network.
With nearly 10million followers between them, it would certainly have a big impact. Watching Life Stories, though, you got the unavoidable impression both of them love fame far more than they hate trolls.
Especially Piers, who recently said in relation to Lady Gaga: “I come from a military family and it angers me when celebrities start claiming PTSD about everything to promote themselves.”
Except, of course, when Gemma Collins does it on his own show and his silence is deafening.
If backing out of the limelight is a non-starter for both, though, you might at least have hoped Gemma would learn something from her Twitter experience and stop treating people who are sucked into her gravitational field, on Diva Forever, like dirt and then blaming her own hideous behaviour on “The GC”, as if she operated like a phantom limb.
While she’s at it, she could reel in her monstrous ego.
But there were no signs of that process starting on Life Stories.
No sooner had the tears dried than Gemma was comparing herself to Michelle Obama, contemplating her own epitaph and announcing she wants to be remembered “like the Suffragettes”. An Emmeline Pankhurst for larger ladies, no less.
It’s a noble cause, so I’ll meet her half-way on that one.
Gemma Collins, queen of the Jumbogettes.
Unexpected morons in the baggage area
TIPPING Point, Ben Shephard: “According to the common phrase, you should let sleeping dogs what?”
Megan: “Sleep.”
Ben Shephard: “Which actor played Mark Antony in the 1964 film Carry On Cleo?”
Iain: “George Peppard.”
Ben Shephard: “Allen Lane named the publishing company he founded in 1935 after which flightless bird?”
Emily: “Ladybird.”
(With thanks to Stu Clarke and Rab Bull)
Davina’s masked balls
Another infuriatingly enjoyable episode of The Masked Singer climaxed with a genuine shock as Sue Perkins was unveiled as the voice behind the giant farting dragon costume.
A revelation that was a million miles away from Mo Gilligan’s first guess, “Dion Dublin”. And Jonathan Ross’s “Kevin McCloud”. And especially Davina McCall’s: “I’ve got a feeling it’s someone really funny.”
Although that wasn’t Davina’s worst guess of the series, which followed the disguised voice of Morten Harket announcing: “I am a Vi-KING.”
“The only king I could think of was a footballer,” said Davina, ready to shoot for the moon. “ . . . Ledley King.” A guess which, believe it or not, actually earned her a round of applause from the studio audience.
Still, at least no one’s named any dead people this series and it should be plain sailing for the judges on tomorrow’s final (ITV, 7pm) with Badger, Robin and Sausage, where a lot of the clues seem to have pointed in the same daytime TV direction.
“I’ll sleep anywhere.” Uhuh.
“I don’t mind speaking my own mind and following my own path.” Yep.
“Someone once said I look like a horse.”
Janet!
Telly quiz
Who said the following this week?
“Look at my nose. That was from a Shih Tzu.”
A) Pooch Perfect’s Colin Taylor discussing how to groom a Welsh terrier.
B) Life Stories’ Piers Morgan discussing how to interview Gemma Collins.
MEL GIEDROYC: Unforgivable?
Sue Perkins, same.
Celebs On The Farm
Over at MTV’s agrarian masterpiece Celebs On The Farm, Duncan from Blue confirms: “I’m happy to shovel s**t.”
Well, how else do you think he made the band?
Telly understatement of the week
Five hours, 51 minutes and 43 seconds into BBC1’s Celebrity Best Home Cook, Rachel Johnson’s slightly under-seasoned her broccoli, Shobna Gulati’s forgotten to put coriander in her dumplings and Ferne McCann says: “This is hard to watch, isn’t it?”
Yes, Ferne. Very, very hard to watch.
Lookalike of the week
This week’s winner is Jimmy Carr and The Egoist from The Venture Brothers cartoon.
Sent in by Queen Irene.
Great sporting insights
Clinton Morrison: “He’s obviously not going to play this afternoon on Monday evening.”
Stephen Warnock: “The finish was perfect as it hit the post and came out.”
Robbie Savage: “It’s very even but Southampton are dominating.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
TV gold
BBC1 repeating the landmark second series of Line Of Duty, when a great show became a phenomenon.
Scotland’s Hamish Watson joyfully booting 38 years of misery into the Twickenham stands at the Six Nations. Sky Documentaries’ Breslin & Hamill: Deadline Artists.
Most read in Ally Ross
The Masked Singer’s guest panellist Matt Lucas following Rita Ora’s JLS lead: “I think it’s Aston . . . Villa player Jack Grealish.”
And This Morning’s “Is your dog a genius?” slot taking a turn for the smutty when Phillip Schofield read: “Jade – My Chow Chow has mastered the noises food packets make.”
Corrugated box or dip-and-squeeze?
Random TV irritations
CELEBS Go Dating “interns” wearing sunglasses in bed.
Tipping Point’s second-year university geography student (India) who hadn’t heard of The Rhine and thought Iran was a town.
BBC2’s Mock The Week giving false hope to journeyman comedians like Ed Gamble, Ahir Shah and Angela Barnes.
And those fearless satirists of The Last Leg looking utterly lost for material after Britain’s successful vaccine rollout and Trump’s defeat.
Jokes at the expense of Joe Biden and The EU being totally off-limits. Apparently.
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