Miriam Margolyes has named the one guest on The Graham Norton Show she didn’t enjoy meeting.
During an appearance at Hay Festival on Saturday (1 June), Margolyes did not hold back from discussing the subject of celebrities she dislikes. She said she’d met one while filming Norton’s BBC series in 2014.
Margolyes’s numerous appearances on the chat show usually result in a video of the star doing the rounds on social media due to her zany anecdotes – something that has helped make her “an enormous amount of money” on personalised video app Cameo.
Over the years, she has appeared on the BBC One chat show alongside stars including Gemma Arterton, will.i.am, Stanley Tucci, Succession star Sarah Snook and, in an episode that left her with feelings of “regret”, Matthew Perry.
But there is only one guest that the Harry Potter star “disliked”: Lily Allen.
“She thought when she was on the programme that it was all about her,” Margolyes explained, while being interviewed by author Philippe Sands. “She thought, ‘Who is this woman? Miriam who?’”
Margolyes added of the singer-turned-actor, who this week admitted she deliberately slept with best friend Miquita Oliver’s pop star crush: “She wasn’t friendly and I didn’t like that and so I showed my dislike, which wasn’t very nice of me because she was much younger than me and I should have just taught her how to behave.”
The episode in question aired in 2014, and the pair appeared on the sofa alongside Dominic Cooper.
The Independent has contacted Allen for comment.
Allen was not the only celebrity who Margolyes tore into during the panel interview at Hay Festival. She also said that Monty Python star John Cleese “has become an a***hole” while Bill Oddie “is not a nice man”.
Margolyes’s appearance alongside late Friends star Perry went viral after she left the actor squirming after sharing an x-rated anecdote.
As the audience laughed, Perry, appearing visibly shocked, stated: “I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been more uncomfortable in my life.”
Margolyes wrote in her memoir: “Matthew was expecting a bland conversation that stayed on the surface of things, but I was warming to my theme and immediately launched in, burrowing deeper.”
