IT WAS AN *eclectic* line-up on Graham Norton last night – the last one of the series – featuring Judi Dench, Jamie Foxx, Kristen Wiig, Steve Carrell and Haim.
There wasn’t a red chair story in sight – but luckily the couch full of guests were on form in the anecdote department throughout.
With Jamie Foxx particularly lighting it up.
And his best story was probably this one about a young, completely unknown Ed Sheeran sleeping on his couch for six weeks back in the day
It just kept getting better and better. He started by describing how Ed ended up in his gaff:
“Ed Sheeran slept on my couch for six weeks before he was famous. I was doing a radio show in LA – it was a satellite show – and he knew that we did music so he comes to my radio show like ‘hello Jamie I’m trying to get my music on, I’d love you to hear it’.”
And he just invited him to sleep on the couch:
So he comes to my crib and plays me his music… so he plays and I’m like ‘You’re incredible. Listen, I know you don’t have anywhere to go, so just chill here.’ I was giving him food and my daughter was like ‘who do you have over here now?’ because I would always have people, always champion the artists.
But he needed to test young Ed out, and had an idea:
“So I said to him ‘I think you’re good, man, but I got to check you out though.’ I took him down to this show that I was doing, this live night, every Monday in LA. And it was like 800 black people. All black – like the best musicians who plays the guitar for Sting.”
It was an intimidating atmosphere, with all the talent on show:
The level of the music is *here* and there was a dude up there rapping and he was sweating and he was black. There was another girl, she came up and sung and she was black. And they were singing blackness, it was incredible.
And on comes Ed:
“And so all of a sudden I said ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Ed Sheeran’ and it was like… *pop* he pops out, his little red hair and a ukulele.”
That went down well:
“One of my homies – who’s an incredible guitarist – was just like ‘Yo Foxx, what’s this man? What you doing to the room right now? You gotta respect the room.’ And it was just like a movie, I said ‘well let’s see what the kid has.’
“And he went out there on that ukulele and got a standing ovation after 12 minutes. And the rest was history.”
G’wan Ed.
It was a great show to end the series – and Jamie Foxx was the perfect guest
Friday nights won’t be the same until Graham is back – and we’ll miss stories like these.
