Eat The Rich

[faceless]

PIERS MORGAN: The night Robbie Coltrane waddled over and threatened to knock my block off
Piers Morgan
18th March 2009
In the final extract from his shamelessly gossip-filled diaries, Piers Morgan recalls his shock when Robbie Coltrane threatened to beat him up in a top London restaurant, persuades Kevin Pietersen to play for his village cricket team, and has dinner with Sylvester Stallone...

FRIDAY, JUNE 6, 2008

Now this fact sometimes surprises me: I've been punched by only one celebrity, ever. Despite 20 years of taunting, exposing and mocking famous people, only Jeremy Clarkson has ever actually landed one on me. But at 11.31pm tonight, I was fairly sure I was going to receive my second celebrity fist in the kisser, when Robbie Coltrane stood up in the middle of The Ivy restaurant in London, stared into my eyes with the kind of evil intent that puts Joe Calzaghe to shame and informed me: 'I'll fuckin do yer, yer fuckin wanker.'

Quite how things got to this stage remains a mystery, as I have never met Mr Coltrane before in my life, and to the best of my memory have never had any run-ins with him on any of the newspapers I have worked on. In fact, I've always rather liked the man's body of work - Cracker was a brilliant series. My children (we both, coincidentally, have sons called Spencer) are big fans of his Hagrid character in the Harry Potter films. And we're even born on the same day - March 30.

But I feared this admiration society might not be entirely mutual when I was led towards my table and Mr Coltrane, sitting two feet away, greeted my arrival with the words: 'OH FUCKING HELL! NOT THAT FUCKING WANKER!' I turned to see who he was talking about, and then realised his drooping, inflamed eyes were looking at me. I sat down, feeling slightly disconcerted. Mr Coltrane, after all, is at least 30st, has a face like a gnarled warthog and looks as if he could 'handle himself', as they say in his native Lanarkshire. My guests, who included Richard Wallace, my successor as editor of the Daily Mirror, were - of course - highly amused. But just as perplexed as I was.

To add to the surreal nature of the proceedings, John Cleese arrived at an adjoining table and immediately walked over to talk to Mr Coltrane. As he did so, his very attractive, leggy, blonde date pulled out a book and started reading it. It was my book, The Insider. Weird.

Later, Mr Coltrane stood up and marched into the kitchen. Presumably to save waiting time before he could start noshing. Well, when I say 'marched', I mean 'waddled' really. His gigantic frame takes several long seconds to be heaved even a few inches. When he returned, I stood up and introduced myself. 'I don't think we've met,' I said, offering my hand. 'Don't you fucking come near me,' he responded, his face contorted into blind, eye-popping fury. 'I'm sorry?' 'I said don't you fucking come near me if you know what's good for you.' 'What's your problem?' 'You're my fucking problem.' 'Why?' 'Fuck off.' By then, the fabulous Ivy staff and other diners were becoming aware of the 'problem'.

I pondered Mr Coltrane's behaviour over another bottle of Chateau Palmer Margaux, and decided to confront my antagonist directly at his table. 'I just want to clarify one thing,' I said, stopping him in mid-bite. 'We've never actually met, right?' 'Fuck off,' came the predictable reply. My patience spontaneously evaporated. 'No, I've got a better idea, why don't you fuck off, you rude little man.' Mr Coltrane's face went puce, and he began to foam at the edges of his mouth. He staggered to his feet, and the restaurant fell quiet with fevered anticipation, allowing Mr Coltrane to let fly with one last outburst - earning him a round of applause from four camp theatrical types nearby. He bristled, and seethed and growled, but then he sat down again. Rather than exuding the magnificent heroic air of Hagrid the Giant, he more resembled Dobby, the pitiful house-elf.

I've had many memorable moments in The Ivy over the years: poked in the chest by Margaret Thatcher, 'snogged' by Dale Winton and rendered a dribbling, alcoholic, incoherent imbecile by newsgirls Sophie Raworth, Katie Derham, Andrea Catherwood and Emily Maitlis - twice (so far). But I think this encounter with Mr Coltrane, OBE, beats them all.

I got home and checked on the internet to see if we had ever been linked in any way. We hadn't. But what I did establish is that Mr Coltrane hates the press - he absolutely detests every journalist on the entire planet. Of course, like every hypocritical thespian, he continues to do interviews to promote himself (he was on Jonathan Ross's show tonight), and regularly gorges at The Ivy, probably the most high-profile media haunt in the world.

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If you're reading this and you've not seen 'The Comic Strip Presents - Eat The Rich' you'll not appreciate how life really seems to have imitated art in this case... In it, Robbie Coltrane played a loud-mouthed buffoon at one of London's top restaurants for media types...

Of course, that's not to say he was wrong in calling Morgan a fucking wanker, or that Morgan was right in thinking that he must have personally insulted Coltrane for him to have a reason to think he's a fucking wanker! Everybody knows that he is a fucking wanker!

On yersel' Robbie



(I removed the censoring of swearing in the story)