Jack Whitehall claims Lady Gaga called him ‘obscene word’ after awkward awards show introduction

Comedian said he ‘tanked’ a joke about a ‘wardrobe malfunction’

Jack Whitehall has claimed that Lady Gaga called him “an obscene word” after he introduced her awkwardly at an awards show.

The comedian and actor recalled the incident during an appearance on Chris Moyles’s Radio X show, where he was asked about his hardest stand-up gigs.

Whitehall said that he had regularly “tanked” while hosting the British Fashion Awards, which he said he hosted “five years in a row and I reckon I got one or two laughs in the entire five-year period”.

After joking that he had “PTSD” as a result of the gigs, Whitehall remembered one year in which he had to delay introducing Lady Gaga, who was being held up backstage.

“They were in my ear saying that there was a delay and that the next presenter wasn’t ready to come on, and so I was trying to fill [time],” he recalled.

“Lady Gaga… was waiting to come on. They said ‘she’s had a wardrobe malfunction so you just have to fill for longer’, and I read out all of the nominees really, really slowly and then I was like ‘oh!’ and something came to me – I was like ‘I’m going to do a bit – wardrobe malfunction, Lady Gaga…’

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“I was putting together the mechanics of what the joke might be so I was like ‘Our next guest presenter is Lady Gaga, she’s had a wardrobe malfunction’ – I was thinking I was going to make a joke about a meat dress.

“And then they went ‘she’s ready, bring her on’ and I went ‘it’s Lady Gaga!’ And I panicked, so my introduction was just me telling everyone that her dress had broken. She walked past, she wouldn’t even look at me and I heard her calling me a very obscene word to the stage manager, and I left in shame.”

Jack Whitehall at the 2019 Brits, and Lady Gaga at Joe Biden’s inauguration in January (Tolga Akmen/Olivier Douliery/Getty Images)

Whitehall, who next stars in the Disney movie Jungle Cruise, recently filmed a return appearance to the Sky One series A League of Their Own. Whitehall left the sports panel show in 2017, having served as a regular panellist for seven series.

In January, Lady Gaga performed the national anthem at Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration.