What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

A fixed Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Recorded Ally McCoist said elsewhere, not written here
“You’re getting old.” My son Harris was factually correct, but I didn’t need to hear it.

The Q&A, The Guardian, 16 November 2024 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 122 →
When I was first acting, in college, a relative came and saw me in Hedda Gabler and she said: “Look in the mirror, you’re not an actor. An actor looks like Mel Gibson.”
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 24 February 2024 source ↗
When I was a child, a member of staff at Wood End Assessment Centre [a former children’s home in Wigan] bellowed: “He copies them poems off of Bob Marley records.”
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 14 October 2023 source ↗
I’ll never amount to anything. Who? He was my rival at dance school. It hurt and is something that I’ve always had in the back of my head to defy.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 28 March 2026 source ↗
“Your lyrics are rubbish.” It was someone I was working with when I was in my early 20s. It turned out well because I then spent a long time studying and learning how to write good lyrics.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 11 November 2023 source ↗

More from Ally McCoist

View profile →

More on failure & regret

Also answered this

Cybill Shepherd, Toby Stephens, Liev Schreiber, Johannes Radebe, Tom Fletcher, Justin Hawkins

Search the directory for somebody in particular.

Explore further

Report this answer