Lorraine Kelly was left red-faced after making an explicit comment during an interview with Idris Elba.
The Lorraine host sat down with Elba for her ITV daytime show, during which she made a cheeky comment to the Luther star about the longstanding rumours he may be the next James Bond.
“Now look, you keep getting asked about James Bond. Can we turn it on its head? Because I think you would be an amazing baddie in James Bond,” she told the actor and DJ.
“I was going to say I can see you stroking a white pussy, but I shouldn’t really say that, because that’s naughty and rude,” Kelly continued, in reference to Bond villain Blofeld, who sits with a cat on his lap.
“I will take that out, thank you very much. We’re not going to put that in,” Kelly said, putting her head in her hand as Elba cracked up laughing. “I will just say that you’d be a really good James Bond.”
Elba appeared taken aback by Kelly’s joke, saying: “It’s out there now. I’ve got it in my head, the image. But anyway.”
The Scottish presenter apologised, leading Elba to stifle laughter with the words: “Now I’m excited about being in a meme with you for the rest of our lives.”
Elba has been tipped to replace Daniel Craig, who appeared in his final Bond film No Time To Die in 2021, for years. Other frequently mentioned contenders include Regé-Jean Page, Tom Hardy and Aaron Taylor-Johnson.
However, Elba seemingly gave a last word on his own candidacy in February, while discussing his performance as John Luther in the Luther film adaptation.
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“You know, a lot of people talk about another character that begins with ‘J’ and ends with ‘B,’ but I’m not going to be that guy,” he said. “I’m going to be John Luther. That’s who I am.”
Despite all the rumours and reports about who could be the next Bond, the actor replacing Craig is yet to be decided.
In May, author Charlie Higson, creator of the Young Bond series who wrote a new Bond book for the King’s coronation, said that any actors talked about as “being considered” for the role have already been rejected.
“As soon as the papers say, ‘So and so is being considered as the next James Bond’, you know that they’re not going to be the next James Bond, you know that they’ve been rejected,” he said.
“Daniel Craig, nobody had any idea at all that he might be Bond. If you’d been asked in advance, you’d have said, ‘Daniel Craig, James Bond, surely not.’ But then he’s just so good in Casino Royale… any doubts you might have had immediately go out the window.”
