EO
'Excuse me, madam, you have a thong hanging out of your handbag.'
The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 March 2008 source ↗
The question
What is the harshest 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.
Others on this question
View all 122 →Glenda Jackson said I was an amateur during rehearsal for The White Devil at the Old Vic. I called her a cow, but that was inadequate.
Alison Steadman
British actress
A critic once said she wanted to lift a carpet, put me under it and hold it down until I stopped moving.
“Your cooking sucks” – before I learned to cook in Covid.
Maggie O'Farrell
Irish-British novelist
“You’ll never walk again.” This was when I was eight or nine and recovering from viral encephalitis.
More from Erin O'Connor
View profile →Annie Lennox - she's a private woman with integrity.
I'm too diplomatic. I tend to edit my mind before I speak - it can be incredibly draining.
When I broke my toe.
Unnecessary judgment.
Not reading my bank statements thoroughly enough!
To be humble is to be sane.
More on failure & regret
- What disappointment has stayed with you longest? 367 answers
- Who deserves an apology from you, and for what? 209 answers
- If you could revise one chapter of your past, what would you change? 203 answers
- When were you most embarrassed? 122 answers
- How has a setback or failure set you up for later success? 69 answers
- What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it? 35 answers
Also answered this
Romesh Ranganathan, Paula Wilcox, Paul McKenna, Dervla Kirwan, Rita Wilson, David Hasselhoff
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All failure & regret questions
- The The Q&A questionnaire — 25 questions from the same format
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject