BBC radio presenter Scott Mills has recalled some of his favorite celebrity encounters from his time at Radio 1 as he prepares to move to Radio 2 in the autumn.
The DJ, whose final show on the station aired on Thursday (August 25), told Kate Thornton his “three” most famous people he’s ever worked with were Katy Perry, Rihanna and Mariah Carey.
But after 24 years at the station he has a long list of celebrities he has worked with who have played along with his ‘Innuendo Bingo’ game and recalls one prank that went particularly wrong.
From his early days at the BBC, he recalled recording Top of the Pops at broadcaster Elstree studios and going to the canteen on his lunch break, which he called ‘a standard working canteen’.
He told Kate Thornton on White wine question time: “The combination of people was so wild.
“I actually haven’t thought about it in years, but it’s bringing up the replay. In line for food was Beyonce, Kelly, Michelle – Destiny’s Child – and Barbara Windsor. Literally in the same line and I’m like: “What is my life?”
WATCH: Scott Mills on his Radio 1 appearance, his wildest on-air jokes and what radio means to him
Pulling off a list of stars who had joined Innuendo Bingo, where they hold water in their mouths and try not to laugh, he said they included Daniel Radcliffe, Hugh Jackman and more.
But he called Jennifer Aniston ‘one of the best’ because she agreed to play a prank he planned with friend and co-host Chris Stark.
He said the actor was one of the nicest people he’d ever met ‘in terms of how famous they are versus how beautiful they are’, which made it all the more surprising to Stark when she contradicted him in an interview.
He remembered seeing Stark’s face ‘drain’ when she said she wasn’t going to answer the question, though she had told Mills beforehand that she didn’t want to be ‘that bad’.
“It didn’t have to be that bad because you could see his face light up like,” Mills recalled. “And then I blew up and it’s all right. But just being able to do it, with her help, was pretty incredible.”
Listen to the full episode to hear Scott talk about his career so far, his friendship with Chris Stark and his biggest pinch me moments from almost 25 years on Radio 1.
But he also recalled a ‘misjudged’ joke he tried to make on Katy Perry when she appeared on the show in a segment called ‘You Control Katy Perry’ where listeners could write in and tell her what to do
Mills had booked a Russell Brand impersonator – at the time the pair were still married, although Mills admits “you don’t know what’s going on in someone’s life, maybe they had issues or who knows”.
Read more: Scott Mills was shocked after the BBC Radio 1 studio was renamed after him during a recent show
He said he was surprised by how much the impersonator looked like Brandi since he wasn’t online and that Perry really believed it was him.
“And then she ran away and cried,” he said. “I thought we messed this up massively.”
With half an hour of the broadcast still to go, Perry was refusing to come out and participate again, so Mills stepped in to apologize.
He told her: “I’m so sorry, we’ve misjudged him so much.
“And she went, ‘It’s okay. You better play my f*****g records forever.”
And from one of those listed in his top three, singer Rihanna, Mills recalled that she was never on time, and once even replied to him on Twitter during a show that she would be there soon.
“The thing is, when it arrives, it’s incredible. So it was worth the wait,” he said.
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