Latest news with #TaioCruz
Daily Mail
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Fitzy and Wippa reveal the rudest celebrities they've ever interviewed
Michael 'Wippa' Wipfli and Ryan 'Fitzy' Fitzgerald have opened up about their most challenging celebrity interviews. The Nova breakfast presenters were discussing their worst celebrity interviews on Thursday morning when Wippa, 45, said the one he did with English singer Taio Cruz was particularly memorable - for all the wrong reasons. 'A one-hit wonder... the producer introduced him as Tayo and he said, "It's Taio mate,"' Wippa began. Show producer Tom then said that Taio only gave 'one word answers', which prompted Wippa to admit he was so unimpressed by him that he refused a photo request. 'At the end of the interview, he wound it up quite quickly, and his publicity guy said, "an you guys get a photo" and we went, 'Nah,"' Wippa said. He added he was also not thrilled by Taio's refusal to take his sunglasses off in the studio. Fitzy then revealed his own bad interview experience, admitting he had a particularly bad chat with James Bond star Daniel Craig. 'Have you got the Daniel Craig audio there when Wippa interviewed him for James Bond? When he said he'd rather suck pus out of an abscess?' Fitzy asked. Craig's comments refer to an Australian interview he conducted in 2012, to promote his movie Skyfall, in which he was asked to demonstrate some of the 'moves' he learned for the role - to which he sniped he would rather suck pus. 'I reckon that was on a Saturday as well. On my weekend, I went to sit down with Daniel Craig and the annoying thing is, Craig thought he was James Bond in the interview,' Wippa chipped in. 'Like it's okay. You're an actor. You're playing a role Daniel!' 'Not really a friendly guy the old Craig of Daniel... man with two first names!' Fitzy added. This is not the first time Fitzy and Wippa have had a particularly awkward celebrity encounter. In 2022, Fitzy revealed on air how Denzel Washington once refused to take a photo with him. 'We were at a restaurant overseas one time and Denzel Washington turned up to the restaurant. And then there was the guy who ran the restaurant, and I started to make my way over to get a photo with Denzel,' he explained. 'Now, the guy who ran the restaurant was like the middleman. So he jumped in right. And I'm asking Denzel "photo?" He jumps in, looks at Denzel. Denzel shakes his head as if to say no, the guy then looks at me and goes "No".' Earlier this year, Wippa was left red-faced when British actor Leo Woodhall snapped at him during an interview after the Nova radio star asked him about his love life. The breakfast host was chatting to Leo and his Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy co-star, Renee Zellweger, about their new movie - and the subject quickly turned to their personal lives. Leo is currently in a relationship with his White Lotus co-star Meghann Fahy and is notoriously private about their romance. 'Leo, are you in love at the moment?' Wippa asked. 'That's none of your business!' Leo snapped back.
News.com.au
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
Fitzy and Wippa spill on their worst celebrity interviews
Nova hosts Ryan 'Fitzy' Fitzgerald and Michael 'Wippa' Wipfli have dished the dirt on their worst celebrity encounters over the years. The Sydney radio duo revealed one particular chat with a global music star went so bad, they refused to get a photo with him. Fitzy and Wippa's producer, Tom Ivey, recalled the pair's trainwreck interview with 'one-hit wonder' Taio Cruz, the UK singer who hit the top of the charts with his 2010 dancefloor song Dynamite. 'The one you got most upset about was Taio Cruz, and he refused to take off his sunglasses,' Ivey said on-air Thursday, adding Cruz was giving 'one word answers.' 'Then you [Ivey] introduced him as 'Tayo' and he said, 'It's Taio mate',' Wippa continued. Fitzy added, 'At the end of the interview, he wound it up quite quickly, and his publicity guy said, 'Can you guys get a photo?' And we went, 'Nah'.' Elsewhere on the list of their 'rude' interviews included none other than the notoriously icy Daniel Craig, who played James Bond in five films. 'Have we got the Daniel Craig audio there when Wippa interviewed him for James Bond? When he said he'd rather suck puss out of an abscess?' Fitzy asked. 'I reckon that was on a Saturday as well. On my weekend, I went to sit down with Daniel Craig and the annoying thing is, Daniel Craig thought he was James Bond in the interview,' Wippa said. 'Like, it's OK. You're an actor. You're playing a role Daniel. 'Not really a friendly guy the old Craig of Daniel, man with two first names.' Fellow Aussie radio star Beau Ryan also opened up about his painful A-list encounters as an interviewer, revealing on-air earlier this year he was left disappointed after talking to Melissa McCarthy. Speaking on Triple M's Beau, Tarsh & Woodsy, The Amazing Race host revealed the US actress was his worst famous interview to date, describing her as 'prickly' during their chat several years ago. 'What I found is, the higher profile the talent, the easier the interview was. And what would happen, usually when I travelled to the states, you'd fly all the way over for four-minute interviews, [so] there was a lot of pressure on it,' Ryan said. 'I would usually go after Fitzy and Wippa, and they'd give me a heads-up if anyone was a problem. And I remember years ago I was in LA interviewing Melissa McCarthy, who I'm a fan of, right? I think she's funny. 'As I'm walking in, Fitzy gave me the eyes and whispers, 'She's a problem.'' Elaborating on their brief interview, Ryan described the Bridesmaids star as 'difficult'. '[She gave] short answers, didn't want to be there, gave me nothing,' he continued. 'You feel uncomfortable. It was disappointing. 'We see them play these funny, likeable characters and we picture them as having that persona and personality, so when they don't, we're let down. 'I've seen her [McCarthy] do some wonderful interviews, but I've seen her do a lot of trainwrecks as well.'
The Age
29-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
What Darcus Beese saw in Amy Winehouse before anyone else
By the age of six he was by their side as they led demonstrations through the streets. 'It was the making of me in terms of what I saw and how that impacted me as a young person of colour growing up in the 1970s and 1980s London,' he says. 'I understood about injustice from a very young age.' Beese began his career in the music industry in the late '80s, making tea in the Island Records UK promotion department. He was 'probably on the defensive as a young black man'. 'You think the world's against you. I had to learn to socialise and be around people that didn't look like me.' As he moved into Island's A&R (Artist & Repertoire) department and started signing artists, he was drawn to those who reflected his world view. Loading 'I doubt that a white A&R person would have signed the way I signed. I made sure I signed black women. 'As well as accountability, I had a responsibility. Other people don't wake up in the morning with that. They just wake up to have hits.' He had plenty of those too, signing and working with artists that also include Sugababes, Taio Cruz, Florence + The Machine and Sabrina Carpenter. In 2013 he was appointed president of Island Records UK – the first person of colour to lead a UK major label – before moving to New York in 2018 to run Island Records US. These days the OBE-decorated exec is focused on his own company, Darco Artist Partnerships. 'I doubt that a white A&R person would have signed the way I signed.' Darcus Beese His new endeavour seeks to rethink the major label business model. 'It's the same way of working, but I use [the term] partnership rather than record deal,' he says. 'What does trust look like in a deal? How do I resource an artist to stay developing in an age where data pulls a lot of artists to the fore, even before they've developed?' That last point is, he says, one of the major impacts of streaming. 'It's digital data before the live ticket,' he says. 'On Spotify when you release, you release globally. Let's break the whole world! 'No. Break your own garden [first]. What does that look like? What's the strategy?' As with so many industries, the music business is currently grappling with the implications of AI. Litigation is under way in the US between the major labels and generative AI music creation platforms Suno and Udio, which are accused of training their models on copyrighted music without authorisation. Then there's the controversy surrounding The Velvet Sundown, a fictional band whose AI-generated music has attracted more than 1.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify. Beese seems relatively nonplussed. 'When the landscape has a seismic shift, everybody goes on the defensive,' he says. 'And everybody's scared that art will be infiltrated and dumbed down. 'I came up in the age of sampling, and that went from something that was exploiting other people's art to being an artform in itself and a way of making records, and people got remunerated. 'The biggest artists are probably the ones that are most terrified of AI, and the infringement on image and their song. New artists are probably like, 'Give me that!''
Sydney Morning Herald
29-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
What Darcus Beese saw in Amy Winehouse before anyone else
By the age of six he was by their side as they led demonstrations through the streets. 'It was the making of me in terms of what I saw and how that impacted me as a young person of colour growing up in the 1970s and 1980s London,' he says. 'I understood about injustice from a very young age.' Beese began his career in the music industry in the late '80s, making tea in the Island Records UK promotion department. He was 'probably on the defensive as a young black man'. 'You think the world's against you. I had to learn to socialise and be around people that didn't look like me.' As he moved into Island's A&R (Artist & Repertoire) department and started signing artists, he was drawn to those who reflected his world view. Loading 'I doubt that a white A&R person would have signed the way I signed. I made sure I signed black women. 'As well as accountability, I had a responsibility. Other people don't wake up in the morning with that. They just wake up to have hits.' He had plenty of those too, signing and working with artists that also include Sugababes, Taio Cruz, Florence + The Machine and Sabrina Carpenter. In 2013 he was appointed president of Island Records UK – the first person of colour to lead a UK major label – before moving to New York in 2018 to run Island Records US. These days the OBE-decorated exec is focused on his own company, Darco Artist Partnerships. 'I doubt that a white A&R person would have signed the way I signed.' Darcus Beese His new endeavour seeks to rethink the major label business model. 'It's the same way of working, but I use [the term] partnership rather than record deal,' he says. 'What does trust look like in a deal? How do I resource an artist to stay developing in an age where data pulls a lot of artists to the fore, even before they've developed?' That last point is, he says, one of the major impacts of streaming. 'It's digital data before the live ticket,' he says. 'On Spotify when you release, you release globally. Let's break the whole world! 'No. Break your own garden [first]. What does that look like? What's the strategy?' As with so many industries, the music business is currently grappling with the implications of AI. Litigation is under way in the US between the major labels and generative AI music creation platforms Suno and Udio, which are accused of training their models on copyrighted music without authorisation. Then there's the controversy surrounding The Velvet Sundown, a fictional band whose AI-generated music has attracted more than 1.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify. Beese seems relatively nonplussed. 'When the landscape has a seismic shift, everybody goes on the defensive,' he says. 'And everybody's scared that art will be infiltrated and dumbed down. 'I came up in the age of sampling, and that went from something that was exploiting other people's art to being an artform in itself and a way of making records, and people got remunerated. 'The biggest artists are probably the ones that are most terrified of AI, and the infringement on image and their song. New artists are probably like, 'Give me that!''
