Dawn French has opened up about a mortifying email blunder that left her cringing with embarrassment.
The comedian and writer is a guest on Friday’s edition of The Graham Norton Show, alongside Dame Maggie Smith, Laura Linney, Adrian Edmondson, and London Hughes.
On the famous red sofa, Dawn opened up about one particular mistake that haunts her to this day, after she accidentally sent an explicit and disparaging email about a James Bond premiere event to the very people who had invited her to attend.
“It was a big deal,” Dawn recalled, “but red carpets are not my thing. So, I thought it would be funny to send my PA a response that would make her laugh, and then she could send a polite ‘no’ on my behalf.”
She continued: “I wrote, with lots of swearing, ‘This will be another wanky red carpet events be full of the usual twats and I would rather have my eyes pecked out by diseased pigeons and my breasts gnawed off by rabid wild dogs’.”
You can see where this is going, can’t you?
Dawn concluded: “I was a bit surprised a couple of minutes later to get an email from the PR department that had sent the invite, saying, ‘Thank you for your speedy response – we totally understand’. Oh dear, I was so embarrassed!”
The Vicar of Dibley star appeared on the show to discuss her latest book The Twat Files, which she says she hopes will “start up an anti-perfection league.”
Dawn explained: “We carry a lot of shame, humiliation, and guilt about our mistakes, and I thought, ‘These mistakes are where I have learnt the most and where the fun is.’
“So, if you can wrangle back some of that shame and shine a light on it, it dissipates. If you own your mistakes, it’s very empowering.”
The Graham Norton Show airs on Friday night at 10.40pm on BBC One.