RTE viewers have praised Dublin drag queen Panti Bliss for her "wild" chat with Angela Scanlon after she recalled meeting Madonna a few years back.
Panti is known as the Queen of Ireland and has been in the spotlight as a drag queen, gay rights activist and an entertainer for a number of years. On Saturday night, she appeared on Angela Scanlon's show Ask Me Anything on RTE for a good chat about meeting pop icon Madonna, her time on Dancing With the Stars, gay rights in Ireland, and more.
The owner of Pantibar an iconic gay bar located on Capel Street told Angela how she met Madonna after a friend's funeral. Panti said: "I turned around and Madonna was there.
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"She stuck out her hand and said: ‘Should I know you?’. I said, ‘yes, you absolutely should’.
“She said, ‘shall we go down to the restaurant?’ She recognised us from the church. For the next two hours [we] had lunch together alone inside this fancy restaurant before everyone else came.”
After their lunch, Panti boldly asked Madonna if she could give pal Sergio a lift back to the city. Panti joked: “I could hear myself turning into my mother saying, ‘Madonna, you came in a big car, you’d have loads of room for Sergio, you can take him back into town.”
Although Madonna planned to go straight to Dublin Airport, Panti said that the pop icon agreed to help, saying: “In fairness to Madonna, she did.” Meanwhile, Panti also opened up about how she was "starstruck" after meeting Monica Lewinsky.
On meeting Monica Lewinsky at The Good Wife actor Alan Cumming’s fabulous party, she said: “There are a million singers and actors, even if you meet Meryl Streep, there’s a load of actors but there’s only one Monica Lewinsky and she sort of changed the world in a way.
"She said ‘hi’ and was super friendly and nice." Panti then spoke to Angela about what Ireland was like before homosexuality was decriminalised.
She said: "I was 27 or something before it was decriminalised in Ireland. Finding other queer people at that time was incredibly difficult! You needed to be Angela Lansbury to find another queer person!"
Fans of Panti Bliss took to social media to praise her for her appearance on Ask Me Anything. One person said on Twitter: "Haha this is wild that Panti Bliss got to meet queen of pop herself Madonna-at a funeral of all places! Fair play."
A second commented: "I haven't laughed so heartily in ages. How fantastic are Celine Byrne and Panti."
A third said: "Brilliant interview with Panti Bliss on tonight's show. She's a gay icon to us all."
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