billie

TFI Friday was also the venue for my first meeting with Billie Piper – the pop-starlet slice of perfection who was to become my second wife. 

The moment Billie was confirmed as a guest, we were all very keen to meet her and see what the young firecracker from Swindon had to say for herself. It was generally accepted that there was a lot more to this girl than just another saccharine-sweet chart sensation who found herself splashed on the front of the teeny magazines week in, week out. The word on the street was that, despite her tender years, Billie was a girl who knew how to party in the fast lane and had the stories to back it up.

I couldn’t wait to talk to her. There are some people you just get a feeling about and Billie was one of those. Whenever I’d seen her being interviewed, I felt maybe there was something she wasn’t telling us.

Billie’s appearance on TFI involved the usual walk along the gantry through the crowd to rapturous applause and excited whoops and hollers, followed by a pacey chat, fleshed out with a few clips and photos. In Billie’s case it also included a spontaneous exchange of clothing behind a pair of curtains, and it was this exchange that piqued my interest even further.

The curtains in question framed a window that looked out across the Thames, and formed the backdrop to all the interviews that took place at the desk. At some point during our conversation, though for the life of me I can’t remember how or why, Bills and I suddenly found ourselves giggling behind the cover of those famous but dusty old drapes whilst swapping my shirt for her vest. No doubt the TV audience wondered what the heck was going on.

When we reappeared I could be seen busting out of Billie’s slinky black skin-tight top, whilst she looked slightly dishevelled but sexy as hell in one of those garish Liberty-patterned shirts I seemed to wear all the time back then. Whatever the reason for this sartorial tomfoolery, it definitely broke the ice between us. It reminded me of the secret tent moment I had enjoyed with Kim Wilde back on The Big Breakfast almost a decade before, when I’d managed to kiss her just before we went live on air – a situation that resulted in us becoming an item for a while.

Clandestine moments like these, when the audience is watching but can’t actually see what’s going on, really do seem to hold plenty of truck when it comes to persuading various gorgeous members of the female race to become more interested in the television host trying to woo them. I think it’s the element of danger that’s exciting, but without the risk of anything really bad happening.

Billie, having to my knowledge never exchanged clothes with any other interviewer before me, had made a statement. At least that’s how I saw it. Girls don’t swap clothes with blokes they don’t like; everyone knows that, not even for the sake of a good bit of PR. I concluded therefore that Billie must like me and I knew for certain that I liked her.

‘There’s something in this,’ I thought to myself. ‘This could go further.’

She was only eighteen, but she was a feisty young woman who had seen much more than such tender years would normally allow. And yes, at thirty-four I was almost twice her age but I was still far young enough not to have to worry about being perceived as a dirty old man just quite yet. Consequently if the chance ever presented itself, I would have no hesitation in pursuing Ms Piper further.