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.
“Try this, you’ll love it.”
The Q&A, The Guardian, 7 June 2025 source ↗
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.”
"Which side shall I comb it over?"
“What makes you think you are so special?”
“You sing like a goat.” When I did my French album [Voila], this French woman – a supposed friend – said to my face: “It’s fantastic but, how come you sound like a chèvre?” It was like someone had hit me in the stomach.
First loved, then laid, then paid.
More than I can, sadly. I led the softest of lives in the softest of times, and my daughter will face sterner challenges.
Do the secret thing you know you were born to do.
In 1993, making love on the beach of a deserted island in the Bahamas.
Always saying yes to people. For example, I’m doing this.
I’m from Birmingham. I’m not afraid of things. Things are afraid of me.
Ben Okri, Melanie Blatt, Jason Manford, Rita Wilson, Clive Myrie, Maggie O'Farrell
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