John Osborne - Virgin Radio

John Osborne

John has seen more of some of the stars than they probably realise.

In 1983, John (then 17) was interviewing Madonna, just before she became a superstar. "She'd been doing interviews all day", he says, "and she was knackered.

I was the last interview of the day, and she came into the room and asked whether I minded if she chilled out a bit during our chat. Well, I was pretty knackered, too - I'd interviewed Kajagoogoo and Nick Heywood already that day, so I didn't mind..

. so Madonna flopped down on the sofa in front of me, wearing very skimpy clothes and showing, well, virtually everything. At my tender age it was very difficult to concentrate on the job in hand.

.. and even now, every time I hear the song 'Like a Virgin', I think.

.. NEVER!

" Mind, it's not just John that's benefited from a bit of close contact with stardom. "I was interviewing Mary Wilson of the Supremes on a dodgy pirate station in London in 1985. We broadcast from a kitchen in Peckham, and the owner of the house was a bit of a late night clubber.

.. he'd go out every night and get totally out of his head and wake up some time in the afternoon, usually while I was on the air.

Well, there I was, at only 19, interviewing Mary Wilson of the legendary Supremes, live on-air...

the interview was going so well we even took calls from fans of hers...

and all of a sudden the studio door opened and there he stood, stark bollock naked, asking if anyone wanted a coffee. I wanted the ground to open up, but Mary didn't blink an eyelid - and said "Oh yes please - with cream and one sugar, darling..

." What a gal! John supports Arsenal but apart from that seems a fairly well-balanced kind of guy: he presented for local station Invicta in Kent from 1996 to 2002, before making the switch to Virgin Radio.

He's also an accomplished club DJ, and you will see him doing some guest spots including Strawberry Moons London - and if that wasn't enough, he also writes regular columns for newspapers and magazines. His dream holiday is "a massive yacht, good crew, loads of fantastic food, no particular place to go, but a helicopter on board so we could hop off to wherever we felt like whenever we wanted". He hates boiled potatoes, most television and gardening.

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