Hugo Taylor Interview

Not many people can say that they’ve had Hugo Taylor in their bedroom, but I am happy to say that I am one of those rare females who’s had the chance to entertain the elegant and charming male protagonist of Made In Chelsea within her boudoir.

Over the phone. Sigh.

But still: we talked, we laughed, we shared stories. It was almost like a first date, except he has a girlfriend (sorry, girls). Here’s what SW3’s leading man had to say for himself…

MINNIE ATHENA: I recently asked 20 hot-blooded females what they thought of you, and seventeen of them said “I would”. What do you think of this result?

HUGO: (surprised) What did they say?

MINNIE ATHENA: “Would”.

HUGO: That’s…a lovely compliment. It’s nice to feel wanted.

MINNIE ATHENA: It gets better. One of them said that you were like coffee, in that you were “rich, warm, and would hopefully keep me up all night”.

HUGO: (laughs) Lovely.

MINNIE ATHENA: How would you describe yourself?

HUGO: Oh, I don’t know…complicated? Yeah, complicated, ambitious, and loving…stuff like that.

MINNIE ATHENA: Jamie [Hugo’s Made In Chelsea co-star] was asked in an interview to compare you all to biscuits, and he said that you were definitely shortbread.

HUGO: It’s best not to take anything that Jamie says too seriously. I’m definitely not shortbread

MINNIE ATHENA: Ok, well what are you then?

HUGO: (pause) An oreo.

MINNIE ATHENA: An oreo?

HUGO: Yeah, because there are just so many ways to be eaten…

MINNIE ATHENA: Oo er. (regains her composure) Does Jamie give you all McVitie’s biscuits for your birthdays?

HUGO: No, he’s never done that. He’s a good friend, but he’s not that generous. He gives us all birthday hugs instead.

MINNIE ATHENA: I personally wouldn’t complain.

HUGO: It was actually his birthday recently; we had a week’s worth of celebrations.

MINNIE ATHENA: A week!

HUGO: Yeah a week, we– wait a minute, or was it someone else’s birthday? I don’t know. I forget. Anyway, we went to Disneyland.

MINNIE ATHENA: What do you think of his Kandy Kitten idea?

HUGO: We actually had lunch recently and were discussing the idea. It’s definitely got legs, but Jamie doesn’t have a very clear concept of what’s needed. But I know that it’ll be successful.

MINNIE ATHENA: Spencer mentioned at the end of Series One that you didn’t actually get on when you first met each other. What happened there exactly?

HUGO: It was a clash of personalities, really. We’re both quite similar, but we thought that we were better than the other person.

MINNIE ATHENA: But in the end you both respected each other’s character, as it were?

HUGO: No, not at all. I have no respect for him (laughs).

MINNIE ATHENA: You very sensibly declined to go to Marrakech with them all in Series Two, due to work reasons. What is it that you do exactly?

HUGO: Well I own a restaurant, for a start. I’m the PR manager for the entertainment group Bourne Capital.

MINNIE ATHENA: Very nice! Did you always plan to do this?

HUGO: I used to do publicity for Chinawhite, but I decided that I wanted to get out of nightclubs and go into restaurants…I’ve always wanted to be a restaurateur, so you could say that I was living the dream.

MINNIE ATHENA: Not many people can say that.

HUGO: No, I’m very lucky.

MINNIE ATHENA: And you went to Harrow; what did you think of the whole boarding school experience?

HUGO: I hated it, I really did. But I’m glad that I went.

MINNIE ATHENA: You think it did you some good?

HUGO: Definitely. It was character building. It puts you in a very testing situation, where you’re playing by someone else’s rules for five years of your life, and you deal with it. It sets you up for life.

MINNIE ATHENA: And you earned the nickname ‘Fagin’ there…

HUGO: My best friend gave it to me in the first week of school. Apparently I have long fingers, just like Fagin. Perfect for picking pockets.

MINNIE ATHENA: And I believe that you used to have a shaved head?

HUGO: I’ve had at least ten different hairstyles. Shaved, cornrows, blonde…

MINNIE ATHENA: Blonde!

HUGO: And green…

MINNIE ATHENA: Wow. So when you’re not working or doing stuff to your hair, what do you get up to?

HUGO: Chilling out, just like everyone else. I can be professionally lazy when I want to be.

MINNIE ATHENA: Do you go to the cinema?

HUGO: I am a massive film buff; I’m probably more into film than anyone else. I recently saw Tintin, and I’ve got the Breaking Dawn premiere next week.

MINNIE ATHENA: Are you Team Edward or Team Jacob?

HUGO: Whichever one supports the wolf.

MINNIE ATHENA: Werewolf. That’ll be Jacob. So you’d rather be a werewolf than a vampire?

HUGO: Definitely.

MINNIE ATHENA: Do you sometimes get the urge to strip off and go for a run in the woods?

HUGO: It’s slightly difficult to do in London…

MINNIE ATHENA: Have you ever been out of London?

HUGO: I do go to the countryside, I like it there. I go abroad a lot aswell.

MINNIE ATHENA: How about south-east London? That’s where I’m from.

HUGO: What’s in south-east London?

MINNIE ATHENA: Me.

HUGO: No, I mean what areas?

MINNIE ATHENA: Bexley, Peckham...

HUGO: (pause) Yeah, I think I’ve been there.

MINNIE ATHENA: (surprised) Why?

HUGO: I’m going to be honest, I was probably just driving through.

MINNIE ATHENA: Have you ever been to Essex?

HUGO: No.

MINNIE ATHENA: Do you watch TOWIE?

HUGO: You know, I actually started watching it a couple of weeks ago, I had a few afternoons off…I met Lauren Pope recently on a night out, she’s a rockstar, she’s really cool.

MINNIE ATHENA: Do you watch Sex and The City?

HUGO: ‘s.

MINNIE ATHENA: What was that?

HUGO: Yes.

MINNIE ATHENA: Which girls would you say you, Spencer, Jamie and Proudlock are?

HUGO: Spencer is Samantha, for obvious reasons…I suppose Jamie is Carrie. Proudlock is the ginger one.

MINNIE ATHENA: Miranda.

HUGO: Yeah, her. And I suppose that leaves me with Charlotte. She’s my favourite.

MINNIE ATHENA: And which Harry Potter character would you say you were?

HUGO: I actually auditioned a few times for Viktor Krum.

MINNIE ATHENA: Seriously?

HUGO: Yeah...

MINNIE ATHENA: I had no idea…which character would you like to be?

HUGO: Dumbledore, for sure. He’s got a fantastic beard. And he’s so wise…

MINNIE ATHENA:…and gay.

HUGO: Gay?

MINNIE ATHENA: Yep.

HUGO: No he’s not.

MINNIE ATHENA: Yes he is. It’s official. J.K. Rowling released a statement.

HUGO: Why would you release a statement saying that?

MINNIE ATHENA: Apparently a lot of questions were being asked.

HUGO: Right. Well. I’d still like to be a gay Dumbledore.

MINNIE ATHENA: Were you slightly disappointed when you didn’t get a letter inviting you to study at Hogwarts?

HUGO: I was devastated.

MINNIE ATHENA: What’s the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to you.

HUGO: Oh my God…I was in Venezuela when I was five, and my parents decided to abandon me with these real-life Nazis whilst they went off on some excursion…they were insane, they had doves that they’d painted. I can’t believe my parents just left me with them. They made me paint pigeons.

MINNIE ATHENA: Ok, I was not expecting that answer.

HUGO: Well you did ask.

MINNIE ATHENA: What’s been your most embarrassing moment?

HUGO: Argh, there are so many, they all involve falling: down stairs, off podiums…

MINNIE ATHENA: Yikes. Did you have a childhood bedtime pal?

HUGO: No, I didn’t have anything. I didn’t really see the point in a teddy bear…

MINNIE ATHENA: Do you have a bedtime pal now?

HUGO: Yes (laughs). Although that’s off-the-record…

London's Worst Nightclub

You know a nightclub is bad when, at the end of the night and the lights finally go up, you find that the sofa that you were sitting on does not, infact, have a cover with an intricate pattern on it, but is actually decorated with a spattering of various bodily fluids. You can catch an STI just by licking your fingers.

Welcome to the worst nightclub in London: the eighth circle of Hell that Dante just couldn’t be poetic about (I shall try with prose). It was here that I spent one evening a week, managing the crummy parties that the company I was working for put on. If my boss wasn’t groping me then he was man-handling the waitresses dressed in the obligatory asset-enhancing uniforms: corsets and ‘sick’ skirts. The way that men behave in the club is very reminiscent of the kiss-chase games that one used to play in the playground at the age of eight. Give the guy a sparkler in the neck of a bottle of Grey Goose and you have a gurgling toddler on your hands.

The club is the haunt of Z-list celebrities, squeezed into the venue by their desperate publicist Max Clifford. These are the reality TV ‘stars’ that you see drunkenly piling into taxis; the DJs with the celebrated breasts rather than the celebrated music; the girl who had sex with Ryan Giggs; the girl who sucked Ashley Cole’s dick. They are sent into the VIP area – literally a couple of sofas surrounded by a rope – and plied with cheap vodka, while the hoi polloi ogle at them. The message is loud and clear: congratulations on degrading yourself. Who knew that a person’s social status could be elevated by swallowing a married man’s cum. A few years ago Madonna arrived one evening, took a look around the place, and made the well-informed decision to promptly retreat.

The odour of fake tan permeates the atmosphere: it settles on your skin, your clothes, your hair. Even translucent vampires would leave looking like they’d been tango’d. It drenches the guests so that they glow in the UV light. Suddenly a new kind of race is created: behold the rise of the fluorescent orange people. This particular species is defined by hairspray-stiffened hair extensions, caked on makeup and spider legs for eyelashes. Grinding on these wannabe-Barbies are London’s gangsters, low-life criminals and naive newly-appointed business whiz-kids: all on a diet of cocaine and weed being dealt out back.

The bored women that you see hanging by the bar are escorts. They are paid to be there, to seduce men into buying them ridiculously expensive drinks, thus generating profit for the club. They will sit on the laps of footballers, who are also paid to be there. Apparently we are all somebody’s whore. The bartenders are told to remove their wedding rings, and they will have their wicked way in the basement with underage girls who got in with fake Ids; then they return to their work, wiping their defiled hands on their trousers before serving you a drink in a smear-stained glass.

Spend an hour at this club, and you’ll want to leave town forever; preferably withdrawing to a cottage in rural Wiltshire where mating sheep are the most rambunctious thing that you’ll have to encounter. But alas, even after quitting my job, the name of this hellhole graces every weekly magazine and tabloid. It’s like I never left.

Ladies and gentlemen: enjoy your night.