Katie Glass
Interviews

Lily Phillips: Don’t blame me for how men have sex

 

She’s famous for her extreme pornography stunts. It’s made her rich, but what about people who say she’s the female Andrew Tate, asks Katie Glass

 

To promote her thousand-man gangbang, Lily Phillips posed naked with her legs behind her head in a photograph reminiscent of the one of Germaine Greer on the infamous cover of Suck magazine to champion female sexual empowerment. But while Greer is considered one of our greatest feminists, Phillips has met a rather different reception.

 

 

30 April 2025

Frank Skinner: ‘There’s no point in woke politics if you aren’t allowed to change your mind’

 

The comedian’s latest tour looks back at a storied career, which begun with banter about porn and shagging — but he assures Katie Glass that he’s reformed, sober and has never even seen cocaine

 

A teetotal Catholic walks into a pub. Is this some kind of joke? I arrive at the Freemasons Arms pub in Hampstead, north London, to meet a man once considered Britain’s most laddish comic to find a softly spoken 67-year-old with a grey quiff, drinking tea. Wearing a grey wool coat, Frank Skinner looks like the English lecturer he started out as.

 

 

12 November 2024

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Stephen Graham: Britain's most modest superstar on depression and how his family keep him sane

 

The Liverpudlian star of The Irishman and Line of Duty talks about working with his wife in new BBC prison drama Time

 

The moment that sums up how surreal Stephen Graham finds fame did not come when he was running through the streets of Hollywood with his friend and former co-star Leonardo DiCaprio, trying to evade paparazzi on mopeds. It came when he was filming Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides – playing Scrum alongside a swashbuckling Johnny Depp on the Universal lot – and looked up mid-scene to see his wife and kids on a golf-cart tour, screaming at him: ‘Wahay! Stephen! Dad!’ He laughs. ‘That was really strange; that was one of the weirdest moments.’ Not getting caught up in the Hollywood hype is important to him. ‘It’s just me, it’s just what I’m about – I always want to be able to tell heartfelt stories,’ he says in his warm Scouse accent.

 

 

29 May 2021

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Mel Giedroyc: 'Almost becoming bankrupt had a big impact on me'

 

So much so that Mel – one half of comedy duo Mel and Sue – has written a novel based on her own brush with bankruptcy

 

Mel Giedroyc appears via Zoom – messy blonde highlights, toothy grin and a bright, casual top – sitting in an elegant drawing room surrounded by oil paintings, with a silver drinks tray on a mahogany sideboard. ‘I’m at my mum’s,’ she explains, in a whisper, like a teenager on the phone, ‘hence the nice stuff. At my gaff you’d be seeing a lot of old toot.’

 

 

20 March 2021

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Line of Duty's Adrian Dunbar: 'I didn’t expect the female attention. Maybe it’s the uniform'

 

As the gaffer makes his much anticipated return, he talks about those catchphrases - and becoming a sex symbol at 62

 

Of all the ways I dreamed my interview with Adrian Dunbar might go, I never imagined we would end up in bed – despite Ted Hastings’ undeniable appeal to women. But here Dunbar is, carrying me over to his four-poster, nestling down on white sheets. Only, somewhat less romantically, we are talking via Zoom and we’re only in his bedroom because that is where the reception is best. Dunbar has piercing blue-grey eyes and a slightly crooked grin. Today he is casually dressed in a black jumper and black glasses with floppy, sandy hair, a far cry from the starched uniform we’re used to seeing him wear as Superintendent Hastings in the multi-award-winning BBC police drama Line of Duty.

 

 

13 March 2021

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Handsome, talented... tricky?

Katie Glass meets actor Tom Hardy

 

"Before 25, I don’t remember anything. I used to be a drinker. A proper one".

 

I wanted to like Tom Hardy. Who wouldn’t? He is a proper British megastar, on the cusp of nailing Hollywood, with the box‑office draw and versatility to be our DiCaprio, Cruise or Travolta. He is magnetic on screen, with a rare ability to combine masculinity with vulnerability. He is Derek Jacobi in Jason Statham’s body. As a result, he makes cartoonish characters such as Mad Max and the super‑villain Bane in The Dark Knight Rises compelling and lends heinous men such as Charles Bronson and the Kray twins humanity...

 

January 8 2017

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She has been called the new Kate Bush, with an ethereal voice, a distinctive image and an A‑list fiancé in the shape of Robert Pattinson

 

Katie Glass meets FKA Twigs, pop's most conflicted new superstar

 

Across the table, FKA Twigs is crying, digging little red nails into her eye sockets, apologising and blinking as the whites turn pink. She's fanning her face, trying to make the tears stop. A plate of scrambled eggs, ordered for breakfast in her favourite east London cafe, goes cold in front of her. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “Sorry. I never cry. I didn’t feel it coming. I thought I was over it, but I’m not.” And although the moment feels uncomfortable, in a way it is a relief...

 

August 8 2015

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Make mine a Becks

 

After pants and perfume, David Beckham has designs on your dram. Katie Glass joined him in raising a glass to his new whisky

 

And then he kissed me. His bristles were tickly sharp on my cheek, his body warm. He smelt amazing: a rich woody musk. And I thought: “I have reached the zenith of my career, and life. I have been kissed by David Beckham.”

 

Go on, admit it, you’ve thought about it. Even sensible, adult woman not normally smitten by idiotic celebrity crushes fancy David Beckham. Even women who don’t fall for people just because they look good in pants, who have no interest in football or Hello! magazine. Even heterosexual men. David, Beckham, Becks, Goldenballs (as Victoria infamously calls him) has got cross-gender, cross‑sexuality, cross‑country sex appeal. I think he might be our greatest British export...

 

October 19 2014

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Annie Lennox on depression, feminism and why she’s standing by Oxfam

 

“It would be a tragedy for people across the world if Oxfam no longer functioned. I’m not walking away”.

 

The face is instantly recognisable. The cruel cheekbones and soft blue eyes. The masculine jaw and finely arched brows topped by a peroxide pixie crop. It is a face whose melancholy beauty has launched six solo albums and countless tours, won an Oscar, Grammys, Brits and Ivor Novellos. Now, at 63, it is framed by horn‑rimmed glasses and is, according to its owner, wrinkled. But that is not what looks so different about it. It is that Annie Lennox is laughing. She hasn’t written a pop song in years. Instead, she is happy...

 

March 4 2018

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Phoebe Waller‑Bridge on Fleabag, feminism and female sexuality

 

A generation of young writers are redefining the way female sexuality is portrayed. The creators of the hit show tell Katie Glass what happens when feminism and porn culture collide.

 

In a boho restaurant in a hipster enclave of west London, Phoebe Waller‑Bridge, Vicky Jones and Amy Morgan are sitting on mismatched furniture, quaffing champagne and debating whether to order the duck profiteroles. “I don’t want to pressure anyone ‑ but I definitely want them,” Waller-Bridge grins. I’d suggested we keep this meeting casual and low-key. By the time the photoshoot ends we’re three bottles in...

 

June 18 2017

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‘I love being married - that's why I've done it three times

 

When journalist and author Julie Burchill, 55, defended her decision to walk out on her kids on Radio 4 last month, she caused all sorts of controversy ‑ again. Here, the enduring feminist tells writer Katie Glass why she’s not afraid to tackle sex, booze or equal pay.

 

Journalist and author Julie Burchill lives like a teen who’s won the lottery; in a Brighton penthouse twinkling with fairy lights and an astro-turf floor, with MTV Hits booming from an 84-inch TV...

 

May 2014

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Pianist James Rhodes on his childhood sexual abuse and why he’ll always speak out about mental health

 

“I hope people will think, ‘Maybe I can have a messy life too and it’s OK’ ”

 

If you have read James Rhodes’s memoir Instrumental, you will not have forgotten it. If you have not, do so now. I cannot write anything about Rhodes more affecting than he has written himself. Instrumental is his harrowing account of the horrendous sexual abuse he suffered for years as a child, at the hands of a PE teacher at his north London prep school. The book never shies away from discussing the graphic physical and mental fallout: the serious spinal injury it left Rhodes with, requiring three bouts of surgery; his depression, OCD, self-harm, alcoholism, breakdown, drug addiction and suicide attempt in a psychiatric hospital. It is a book filled with anger, sadness and torment, yet also, wonderfully, it is the story of how Rhodes transcended trauma through a profound love of classical music.

 

January 7 2018

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Emily Ratajkowski On Why No‑One Should Police Your Body

 

She found fame dancing half-naked in a music video, but has gone on to carve out a credible acting career. When it comes to Emily Ratajkowski, the biggest mistake would be to underestimate her...

 

Like most people, I first noticed Emily Ratajkowski in Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines video, the uncensored version of which features her dancing naked except for a flesh‑coloured G-string. Later, she played a busty schoolgirl in Gone Girl. Her career since has featured many half-naked Instagram pics. All of which is why Piers Morgan has written her off as a ‘global bimbo’, sniping that her feminism would make Emmeline Pankhurst turn in her grave...

 

October 9 2018

 

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Russell Brand interview: My journey from sex addict to spiritual messiah

 

The comedian once hooked on drugs, fame and romping has been reborn as a self‑help guru, writing a guide to enlightenment. Oh, and he’s loving being a new father.

 

It is surprising to be meeting the hippie hero of an anti‑capitalist revolution amid the grand oak-panelled surroundings of a five‑star English country hotel. But then nothing about Russell Brand is as I expected. Gone are the jeggings, the nest of hair and kohl-eyed Jack Sparrow look. Today he is wearing a scruffy tracksuit pushed up at the elbows to reveal scribbled tattoos, a T‑shirt and man bun. He looks older than I’d expected, with wisps of grey in his hair and beard. And he’s still attractive at 42.

 

September 17 2017