First Crushes: Listeners and celebrities reveal all
Childhood celebrity crushes: lasting or fleeting, we’ve all had them. From Barry Manilow to Bowie and beyond, listeners have dished on the singers whose posters lined their bedroom walls and the lengths they went to to get a little closer to them.
Here's what our listeners revealed about their first crushes.
Elton John
Childhood Celebrity Crush - Elton John
Autumn from Pontefract explains why Elton was 'the one'.
Autumn, a listener from Pontefract told Zoe how hearing Tiny Dancer for the first time as a child led to a life-long obsession with Elton John that eventually resulted in her finding the love of her life.
Barry Manilow
Childhood Celebrity Crush - Barry Manilow
Gail explains why she was a Barry fan!
Gail says she was in love with Barry Manilow from a young age, despite the 'cooler' alternatives around at the time. She even wore a Barry jumper knitted by her mum.
"I was a proud Barry fan," she says.
Simon Le Bon
Childhood Celebrity Crush - Simon Le Bon
Listener Rebecca phones to reveal her childhood celebrity crush.
Rebecca didn't follow her friends when it came to choosing her favourite member of Duran Duran, saying she prefers frontmen and was attracted to Simon's 'swagger' when she first saw him perform on Top Of The Pops.
Blue
Childhood Celebrity Crush - Blue
Cassandra phones Zoe Ball to share her thing for the boy band Blue.
Cassandra loved Blue so much, she was convinced she'd get married to Antony Costa. It didn't happen, sadly.
And if you thought your favourite stars escaped the first crush phenomenon, think again.
Here's who the A-listers were crushing on when they were young.
Scarlett Johansson loved David Bowie
Once described by Caitlin Moran on as making "being a human being look like the most exciting thing in the world", it's hardly surprising that David Bowie or, more aptly, Jareth the Goblin King, made an impression on a young Scarlett Johansson.
“My first crush was on David Bowie in the movie Labyrinth," she once told Live magazine.
Describing their first encounter, ScarJo said she "couldn’t tell him he was my first love because I couldn’t actually speak when he shook my hand.”
Kristen Wiig loved Billy Idol
Planning her own white wedding to the bleach-blonde singer from a young age, Ghostbusters actress Kristen Wiig confessed to the extreme lengths she went to in the name of her childhood crush
"I had Billy Idol’s picture on the back of my bedroom door, and I took a photo of it, because I wanted to take the picture, develop the picture, and tell people that I saw him," she told New York Magazine.
"But it didn’t work, because there was always a huge glare, like over his face, and it was very obvious I was taking a picture of a poster. I’m sure I wouldn’t have gone through with the elaborate lie, but it just seemed like a good idea at the time."
We’ve all done it, right?
Michael Jackson loved Diana Ross
Contrary to initial rumours, Michael Jackson's 1987 hit, Dirty Diana, wasn't a slight at old friend Diana Ross (that song was actually about ‘groupies’). Instead MJ cited Diana as one of his first crushes.
When I was little, I used to stay with Diana Ross," he told Oprah Winfrey in 1993.
"Me and my brothers stayed with her for years and I never said, but I always had a crush on her."
Michael later went on to star alongside Ross as the Scarecrow to Diana's Dorothy in The Wiz.
Macy Gray loved all of The Jackson 5
Soul singer Macy Gray revealed that she had a crush on every member of The Jackson 5.
"My first crush was Michael Jackson, when I was little, and I used to go back and forth with all the brothers. I had a different Jackson crush like every week," reports New York Magazine.
"They were all cute and they could sing and dance and they were on TV. I liked Jermaine for a really long time, but I was older when that happened."
