“He wanted me to introduce him as the biggest rock star on the planet." Comedian Jack Whitehall says Jared Leto tried to alter his Brit Awards script

News
By ( Louder ) published

Brits host Jack Whitehall says he halted Thirty Seconds To Mars frontman Jared Leto's diva moment

Jared Leto, with an inset of Jack Whitehall
(Image credit: Jack Whitehall photo by Karwai Tang/WireImage, Jared Leto photo by Sergione Infuso/Corbis via Getty Images)

Comedian Jack Whitehall says Thirty Seconds To Mars frontman Jared Leto tried to alter an autocue script so that Whitehall would introduce him as "the biggest rock star on the planet."

Whitehall was hosting the Brit Awards and he got wind that singer and movie star Leto didn't appreciate the humour in the comedian's introduction of him.

And in a diva move that would rival the best of them, Leto and his publicist marched over to the autocue and tried to rewrite Whitehall's script.

Asked whether any of his Brit Award jokes have ever got a bad reaction from any celebrities, Whitehall tells BBC Radio 2: "He didn’t like his intro, and then during the show, whilst I was up on stage hosting it, one of the producers found him by the autocue with his publicist changing my script, actually deleting the intro and typing in his own one.

"I’m like Ron Burgundy, I would’ve just read it, but someone found him.

"He wanted me to introduce him as the biggest rock star on the planet, and I wasn’t on board with that. I wanted to introduce him as ‘The Hipster Jesus’, and that was deleted."

To avoid similar incidents, serial Brits host Whitehall says he has recruited someone to guard the autocue.

He laughs: "Now the autocue is guarded as well. I’ll have my mum there dressed as Chappell Roan!"

This year's Brit Awards is being held at Manchester’s Co-op Live and will mark Whitehall's sixth time as host.

Stef Lach

Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022. 

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.