While it has truly been a year of ‘WTF?’ moments on the news agenda, the people of the entertainment world have been giving Theresa May and co a run for their money in 2018.
Don’t believe us? Well, this lot certainly proved that was the case...
‘Celebrity Big Brother’ may now be consigned to the TV bustbin, but it was still serving up nuggets of bizarre TV gold up until the end. Eleven months on, and we’re still getting over housemate India Willoughby’s confession that ‘Doctor Who’ villains the Daleks apparently do it for her.
Cheryl left ‘X Factor’ viewers with some very confused feelings during her big comeback performance, when she seductively licked the tattoo on the side of her hand like a cat. We hope she used some anti-bac first.
3. ‘This Morning’ meets a sexy cow
‘This Morning’ almost had too many ‘WTF?’ moments to count in 2018, but they don’t get much more typically ’This Morning’ than when Holly and Phil met Britain’s sexiest cow.
Clearly having learned nothing from Kanye West’s 2009 VMAs drama, Radio 1 DJ Charlie Sloth decided it would be a good idea to storm the stage after losing out on a podcast award to Edith Bowman earlier this year, telling her to “fuck her life”. He subsequently left his Radio 1 show before the end of his contract and issued a full apology to Edith.
We’ve seen many odd beauty regimes in our time, but the sight of Dani Dyer using a blowdryer and cotton bud on her eyelashes had ‘Love Island’ viewers perplexed. Her explanation? She had false extensions on them and apparently washing them with baby shampoo and blowdrying them keeps them fluffy. Who knew?
‘Drag Race’ alum Courtney Act was always going to make a bit of an entrance into the ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ house, but even she probably didn’t anticipate suffering the mother of all wardrobe malfunctions.
7. Gemma Collins’ Now magazine interview
Long before their whole sorry Stacey Solomon saga, Now magazine had a moment of sheer brilliance after a less than charming encounter with Gemma Collins. After The GC berated one of their journalists for daring to stray off the topic of her book during an interview, they printed the whole uncomfortable exchange in all its excruciating glory.
Not content with winning a Chinese talent show, Jessie J shocked her homeland fans again in 2018 when she began dating actual Channing Tatum. A few months on and the unlikely pair’s relationship appears to be going from strength to strength.
Another entry from the artist formerly known as Cheryl Cole on this year’s list. This one came as she and Liam Payne tried a little too hard to convince everyone else that their relationship was fine amid split rumours. Chezza might have said “don’t stop”, but we wanted her to do exactly that.
2018 had barely just got started when Brenda Blethyn’s randy dog showed them both up during an appearance on ‘This Morning’.
Lily gave a rather unexpected explanation for why her infamous feud with Cheryl all started, claiming in her autobiography it was because she hadn’t yet achieved orgasm. “Sorry Cheryl, I was angry because I hadn’t come yet,” she wrote. “I was jealous. I was frustrated,” she said. “I was struggling with my own issues around sexuality. I’d never even had an orgasm.”
The Royal Family became an unlikely fall guy for Brendan’s axing from ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, when a tabloid newspaper reported that the pro’s decision to breach protocol and dance with Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, at a tea dance led to bosses’ decision to drop him. To make matters even more surreal, Clarence House later issued a statement on the matter, saying: “The Duchess thoroughly enjoyed her dance with Brendan just as much as she did her dance with Craig.”
The former ‘Bake Off’ judge made a shocking revelation during an appearance on ‘The Graham Norton Show’, admitting she was once arrested on suspicion of smuggling drugs through a US airport. Yes, that’s right, sweet, wholesome Mary was mistaken for a drugs mule. The mix up happened after security mistook the bags of sugar and flour she was carrying in her luggage for class A drugs.
14. Nick Knowles’ press ups
Far be it from us to ever gym-shame anyone, but there was something distinctly worm-like about Nick’s jungle workouts.
The latest entry into the ‘When Animals Attack Celebs’ hall of fame came courtesy of Iain, who wound up in A&E after a meeting with an owl turned vicious. On his radio show, Iain revealed he had lost a pint of blood in the attack, had had to have scratched on his head glued back together. But this wasn’t the random event to happen to Iain this year...
16. Iain Lee falls down a well
The presenter also fell down a well earlier in the year, leaving him in a neckbrace. We’ll let him explain this one: “There was a well, I’m stood at this well and I’ve got a 20 pence piece, I thought I will make a little wish.” Revealing the coin got stuck, he continued: “You know what I did? I’m such an idiot. I’m so embarrassed. What I did first of all was try to reach it leaning in head first. So there’s the rope with the bucket, I’m testing and pulling it and I think it’s going to take my weight and I go in feet first and.... I fell into the well. The water went up to just below my knee.”
She may be the face of the biggest baking show on telly, but it turns out Victoria sponges and the like don’t actually float Prue Leith’s boat. The ‘Great British Bake Off’ judge told The Mirror she is “more interested in savoury cooking than baking”, and quite frankly we don’t know what to believe any more.
Having spent weeks slagging off the new judging panel for ‘The X Factor’, Sinitta decided for a typically low-key entrance at the series press launch.
Kim Cattrall dashed any hope of a ‘Sex And The City’ reunion when she went to all-out war with former co-star Sarah Jessica Parker. The Samantha Jones actor branded SJP “cruel” and accused her of “exploiting” her brother’s death, as she posted a public tirade on Instagram. “Let me make this VERY clear. (If I haven’t already) You are not my family. You are not my friend,” she wrote. Yep, think we got that one.
Now, don’t know about you, but the last thing we’d do before returning to work would be to slag off our job and our boss on national radio, but that’s exactly what now-former ‘X Factor’ judge Sharon Osbourne did. Somewhat unsurprisingly, she didn’t end up taking her planned seat on the panel during this year’s live shows.
Kanye West did many, many things that made headlines this year, but we’re still getting over him standing at the heart of the US Government in the White House and launching a tirade against liberals while President Donald Trump sat and nodded along. Peak 2018.
Undoubtedly one of the most shocking celebrity stories of the year saw ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ star Roxanne lie about being punched by fellow housemate Ryan Thomas. While we at home knew Ryan had not really hit her, the rest of the housemates believed her, and we were all dumbfounded with how she spun the playfight into something much more sinister.
23. Nick Hewer mourns his ‘lovely barn owl’
We don’t think we’ve ever seen a more bizarre thing on Twitter.