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Sophie Ellis-Bextor recalls offending 8000 Take That fans

By | Published on Monday 8 April 2019

Sophie Ellis-Bextor

What’s it like to offend an arena full of people who you’re supposed to be entertaining, before you’ve even started? Sophie Ellis-Bextor knows. She once turned an arena full of Take That fans against her with a quip about Mark Owen’s height.

Speaking to the Scummy Mummies podcast, Ellis-Bextor recalls that she thought she was going to get fired at the start of a 34 date tour supporting Take That in 2007. “Night two, I came out on stage and the microphone had been set at a really low [position on the stand]”, she says. “I got to the microphone, adjusted it and said, ‘I was gonna… no I will tell you, I was gonna say maybe it had been set for Mark’. And they all booed me. It was horrible”.

Her attempts to diffuse the situation didn’t help either. “I was like, ‘No, no, my step-dad’s quite short…'”, she cringes. “It was awful, it was properly awful. I thought I might get fired. It was, like, date two, and I thought we’re not going to see the other 32”.

Luckily for her, the rest of the tour went ahead as planned, but to this day she doesn’t know if the incident ever got back to Owen himself. “I don’t know, but he’s such a nice guy he’s probably way too polite to ever say to me if he did”, she adds. Which possibly makes it worse. Although she does remember that “Take That were incredibly friendly and shared lots with us”.

Ellis-Bextor will be playing headline dates in June and November this year, where she’ll be free to joke about anyone she wants.



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