Rylan Clark has shared his horror at having to dress head-to-toe in doner kebab meat for his latest gig, saying it almost made him turn vegan.
The usually meat-loving TV and radio star, 35, found himself questioning his food choices when asked to recreate some of his favourite and most iconic awards season moments with a fun foodie twist to announce the return of Deliveroo’s Restaurant Awards for 2024 and his new role on the judging panel.
In addition to Rihanna’s much memed yellow pizza cape and Jennifer Laurence's fall at the Oscars, Clark channeled Lady Gaga's famous raw meat dress as a kebab tux.
The quirky ensemble, which comprised of a jacket and trousers, plus, a pita bread fashioned as a fascinator, had to be kept in a cold storage room ahead of the photo shoot.
According to the Essex native, the reason for this was not only practical due to the material's perishable nature, but because there was no way he would have worn it had he seen it in advance.
Speaking to The Standard, the BBC Radio 2 host explained: "I won’t lie, I didn’t realise I would be head-to-toe in doner meat. I’m telling you now, I can still smell it!
"They had to keep the blazer and the trousers in a cold room, like a cold storage room whilst I was doing the other shoots and they wouldn’t show me it because I think they know I would’ve gone ‘f*** off, I’m not doing it’.
"Then all of a sudden it came out and I mean the poor stylists, god bless’em the pair of them, they really worked for it," he continued.
"The funniest thing is they were telling me that when they were getting the doner meat, because obviously they had to get it the night before and start the outfit and stuff, you couldn’t pre prep it, they did an online order, not with Deliveroo, just a shopping order to get a load of blank doner meat and it was substituted with ham! So they needed to actually go out and just get doner off a spear!"
In case you were wondering whether the former X Factor finalist had been tempted to have a little nibble in-between posing up a storm, the answer is a definite no.
"Absolutely not!" he said, horrified at the suggestion. "I nearly came out of there vegan!" he laughed.
Asked if the experience had given him a new appreciation for the raw beef outfit Lady Gaga wore to the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, he said it had, but felt that the Born This Way hit-maker got the better end of the deal, joking: "Raw meat might have smelt better".
Otherwise, Clark said teaming up with the food delivery service was somewhat of a dream job for him and believes he is well qualified to be on the panel for the awards because he says he's their "top customer".
Launching on January 8, the awards celebrates and recognises the very best and most-loved restaurants across the country, voted for by the public.
He said: "I’ve wanted to work with Deliveroo for a long time because I genuinely think I’m their top customer. When they came along I was like ‘finally, I can get my money back!’
"Every time I’ve seen the Deliveroo guys out and about, I’ve always said ‘when are we working together?’ because I literally keep the company afloat."
