Celebrity Big Asshole
Let’s start with something funny for a change.
Kate Smurthwaite did a tv chat thing this morning along with “Celebrity Big Brother star” Kim Woodburn where they discussed whether or not it’s annoying to be called “darling” in shops.
It wouldn’t be all that funny/interesting perhaps were it not for the fact that Kate reports that Kim Woodburn pitched a fit at her in the corridor afterwards.
I’m not even joking. Kim Woodburn (from How Clean Is Your House who I was just on This Morning with) completely flipped out at me in the corridor as we left the studio. Got right in my face. Called me “crazy”, “a nutter” and all sorts of other not-very-PC terms. I was like “the debate’s finished, why are you still shouting?”. Then she screamed (really screamed, loud) “And shave your armpits, you look disgusting. It’s not feminine.”
Optional essay topic: is it Trumpism, or would people be carrying on this way even if Trump had returned to private life last November?
I was watching Clinton’s interview on Rachel Maddow the other night, and I think she put her finger on it. She said she thinks Trump has “given permission” to people to act out their basest instincts.
I think it was getting normal before, though, and that Trump is more the effect than the cause. I think social media and the relative privacy of hiding behind a name not your own gives people a sense of security to say the nasty things they think, and now it’s gotten so normalized that people do it under their own name.
It’s the new version of shouting at your TV, only now everyone can hear your rants.
I doubt two British women, well into adulthood, and with strong opinions like these, are all that influenced by Donald Trump or his election. He’s just not that charismatic, and he’s a factor across an ocean.
That said, there are almost certainly longer-term trends in the English-speaking world that end up getting us both Trump here and Ms. Woodburn’s nastiness there.
Ah well I wasn’t thinking it was his charisma that could be an influence.
Also, it’s not two British women. Kate was not rude. Kate did not continue the argument in the corridor.
I’m on Guernsey this week, and everyone calls everyone else darling. It’s weird, but wevs.
Oh, I’m not placing an iota of blame on Ms. Smurthwaite; I’m just figuring that she’s not likely expressing herself in a way that happens to trigger nuttiness in someone else as a result of Trump either. We’re just as free to speculate about her being more assertive about not caring to be trivialized by strangers as a result of Trump too, and to figure it’s not much of a factor for her either.
He does have something that impresses his followers. There’s that persistent bunch of deplorables who eat up his schtick. If there’s a better word for it than ‘charisma’ – with the huge caveat that it is not only selective but that he’s positively repugnant to most anyone else – it’s not springing to my mind.
No, I know you’re not; sorry for sounding as if I didn’t.
“Rebel vibe”? Something like that, I think.
Kate was brilliant.
Also, thanks to Kim’s crack, I had to re-watch the whole damn thing staring at Kate’s armpits the entire time. Sad to say at no point did I see ary a stray hair, let alone anything that might be mistaken for a bashful hedgehog nestling. Kim may have had a better view than the camera did, but it seems one would have to be scrutinizing from below even to notice, let alone get offended.
Funny, though. Kim “dear Muslimaed” the entire topic, but decided that armpit hygiene was a critical topic for discussion.
OK just listened to this and wow Kim is obnoxious. What kind of person starts a conversation of this sort with ‘you’re lying–that’s never happened to me’?
I don’t know how Kate does it. She’s *always* set up to be the supposed villain, no matter what show she’s on. Obviously she knows this and she always does a brilliant job.
She always impresses the hell out of me.
Me too.
You saw her at that Dublin pub after the Empowering Women in Secularism conference right? You didn’t make the mistake of leaving that afternoon?
She was on great form.
She was. I remember laughing myself breathless.
Love when Kate turns the “aren’t there more important things?” back at her! If something is too trivial for a person to be “offended” by, why is the defence of the something so fierce? Makes you think….. :-)
We seem to be in an era now where those hurling the accusations of “political correctness” are the humourless scolds rather than vice versa
Kate: “Some men treat women patronisingly”
Kim: “Liar! Shut up!”
These are not equal thinkers.
Kim has always been a repulsive excuse of a human who’s made a career out of sneering and looking down her nose at everybody who isn’t her.
One can blame Trump for a lot of the evil breaking cover at the moment but Kim Woodburn is a self-made P.O.S, with all the charm and wit of Piers Morgan, himself yet another self-made P.O.S.