He had her at “hello”.
No, not Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire. This is how Emily Maitlis describes being unexpectedly yet immediately captivated by comedian Russell Brand.
She had been prepared to “loathe” the comic prior to their 2017 Newsnight interview.
But during the chat, she admits that she might even have been flirting — “Gahhh, perish the thought,” she cringes in her new autobiography.
Russell didn’t endear himself to Emily prior to their meeting, insisting on his own makeup artist and a separate green room, before arriving 30 minutes late wearing tight leather trousers offset with “make-up better than mine”, “his hair longer and glossier”.
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“He had me at hello,” she admits, thanks to his “flattering, warming and confidence-boosting” charm and “faux-Dickensian courtesy”.
“I am grubbily keen already and he’s only been in the room a minute,” Emily writes in her new autobiography, Airhead: The Imperfect Art of Making News. “Could it be that I am flirting? Attempting to? Gahhh, perish the thought.”
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Elsewhere in her memoirs, Emily describes Steve Coogan’s comedy character Alan Partridge as “the third person in my marriage” as she’s such a fan — admitting she was worried she would appear “girlie and starstruck” while appearing in his latest BBC show, This Time.
Emily’s autobiography is available to buy now.
