It’s hard to get a celebrity to be truly candid. In an era where social media means a quote can be taken out of context faster than you can say ‘notes app apology’ they have every right to be cautious — and highly media trained.
But some of the stars of culture that spoke to the Standard this year were disarmingly frank, on topics as wide-ranging as politics to their personal lives. Which band actually rates Keir Starmer? Who is the actor that worked out to impress his co-star? Who blames their bad Christmas pasts on their ex?
Read on to find out with best celebrity quotes of 2025, as told to the Standard.
Robbie Williams
Pop star turned fine artist Robbie Williams sat down with the Standard to discuss his former party boy habits, his art, and how having his four children fixed the “acute imposter syndrome” he used to experiance while performing live to throngs of his fans. Yes, you might have once spotted him bouncing around the Groucho Club while high on drugs back in the day, but there was a reason for that.
“Childhood trauma doesn’t understand 80,000 people beaming back love to you, and that’s how strong that feeling is,” said Williams. “The trauma sent me off in a not good direction.”
Read more: Robbie Williams on success, cocaine, trauma — and finally growing up
Kylie
No one does Christmas like Kylie (or Auntie Kick, as her family calls her). She’s got the ultimate Christmas album, and her own brand of wine on tap for gifting. But even superstar queens of pop get lonely under the mistletoe sometimes. She was far to polite to name and shame any of her ex partners in print, but when she’s had a bad time over the holidays, well, there were reasons.
“Looking back there have been a couple where I wasn’t in the best company. I could have been in better company — let’s leave it at that,” she told the Standard.
Read more: Kylie Minogue: I didn’t know London would become such a huge part of my life
Suede
Just try getting someone famous to weigh in on politics in 2025. Most of them won’t touch it with a barge pole, and even asking vague questions about the state of the world will have the PR breathing down your neck. Unless it’s Kneecap or Bob Vylan in the interview chair, don’t expect quotes on world leaders.
Suede, however, might be drawn on the matter. Or at least, one member of the British rock band is. Turns out, bassist Mat Osman is a fan of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
“I personally quite like him,” said Osman. “He’s quite boring. I don’t think he’s a crook, which is basically what we’ve had in charge for a long time. I quite like being ruled by a boring bureaucrat.” Frontman Brett Anderson would like to clarify that “Mat doesn’t, in any way, speak for me or Suede.”
Read more: Suede on Oasis, anti-nostalgia and 'society at breaking point'
The Last Dinner Party
Class, privilege and wealth are hot button issues at the moment, and celebrities are at the eye of the storm. British indie band The Last Dinner Party are making era-defining music and performing high octane live shows. But so much of the conversation around them centres on lead singer Abigail Morris’ background (she attended £55,000-a-year private boarding school Beadales).
“It’s a reflection of the state of the country. People are angry with me,” said Morris, who acknowledges it gave her a leg up. But it’s not an argument that is being made in good faith, she believes. “I think most people who bring it up aren’t bringing it up in order to have a discussion. They’re doing it to hurt us and discredit us.”
Read more: The Last Dinner Party on class, prejudice and silencing the haters
Teddy Swims
.jpg?trim=140%2C0%2C140%2C0)
Teddy Swims has never been afraid of speaking his mind. When the treatment of artists by record labels became a hot button issue this year — with Chappell Roan leading the charge using her Grammys speech to call for livable wages —the singer lent his voice to calls for music industry reform.
“I hate that there are people out there who are getting eaten alive and chewed up and spat out and not taken care of and getting taken advantage of,” he saaid. “This industry can be so snakey and gross.
“It’s not hard to be decent. It’s a lot harder to be a dick.”
Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche
Actors Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche go way back, so a little bit of teasing between colleagues is perhaps to be expected. The pair starred in Uberto Pasolini’s film The Return, and Binoche got front row seats to Fiennes’ instense physical transformation he undertook to prepare for the role.
“I knew I was going to be not wearing much in the way of clothes, just a blanket and a sort of loincloth thing,” Fiennes told The Standard. “I wanted to look plausible as someone who’s a fighter, a soldier, a sailor...”
“Come on, Ralph. COME ON,” Binoche interrupted, with a grin, poking his bicep with a finger. “You also wanted to look gooood.”
“I wanted to look good for Juliette,” he conceded with a pained smile.
Read more: 'I wanted to look good for Juliette' — Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche reunite for The Return
Olivia Cooke
Actor Olivia Cooke has built a reputation playing women who are more than a little morally grey. There was her breakout role as Emma Decody in Bates Motel, Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair, and Alicent Hightower in House of the Dragon. Her latest show The Girlfriend sees her acting out revenge plots with buckets of blood.
Where does she find the well of inspiration? “My female rage is, like, metastasizing into some awful ulcer or cancer,” she said. “And I get to exercise it in some small, controlled way on screen.”
Ashley Walters
Actor Ashley Walters had a starring role in one, of not the, biggest shows of the year: Netflix’s Adolescence. It hit home with audiences around the world, especially for parents trying to raise their children in the age of Andrew Tate and other toxic online influences. Waters himself has eight children — how does he find the time to be a present father?
“Let’s not even go into that,” he laughed. “I’m literally scheduling time in my diary to call them. It’s tough, but it’s important. And I don’t think it gets easier. They need you more as they get older. And then they want houses, cars … It’s expensive!”
Read more: Ashley Walters on why Adolescence is hitting people so hard
Laufey
Writing thinly veiled songs about the people who have wronged you is basically a requirement for singer-songwriters these days. Taylor Swift has built an entire career off it, and where would Charli xcx’s Brat and Brat And It’s Completely Different But Also Still Brat be without her and Lorde working it out on there remix?
Jazz-pop singer Laufey’s latest album, A Matter of Time, unpicks several major heartbreaks and takes the people who broke said heart to task. But do the targets of her lyrical ire know the songs are about them?
“If it’s a mean song, I will never tell them,” she said. “I they ask, I’ll never admit it.”
Elton John
Elton John is the elder statesman of pop, mentoring new artists and continuing to explore new genres in his own work. But there is one new fangled development he detests in the creative sphere: generative AI.
“I think it’s very dangerous,” said John, who has been lobbying the Government to ensure greater protections for artists and their copywright.
