Jake Shears: How close have you come to dying?

The question

How close have you come to dying?

Originally asked

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

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

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

Jake Shears

Singer and songwriter; co-lead vocalist of Scissor Sisters

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

Five years ago, a concrete plug, a little bigger than a baseball, fell off a building on Hollywood Boulevard when I was riding in an open convertible. It shattered the windshield. It really shook me. I still have it on my mantel.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 July 2021 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 209 →

Julien Macdonald Welsh fashion designer

When I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro for charity. It was horrendous.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 1 October 2016 source ↗

Emilia Fox English actress and presenter

I’ve been to two postmortems in real life, and spent the last 14 years talking about death at work – so, pretty close.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 October 2018 source ↗

Nicola Walker British actress

Swimming off the north Cornish coast eight years ago. I remember thinking, “Why did they teach you how to inflate your pyjamas in life-saving classes at school, when they could have just told you what to do in a riptide?”

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 January 2017 source ↗

Tom Burke

A running accident when I was 14 or 15. I fainted but I was a bit of a jester and they thought I was taking the piss, so I was left for a bit. I woke up in hospital.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 May 2026 source ↗