[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvSbgAe9Zl4&start=275]
From 1992, an appearance on the Late Late Show where Cliff Richard was joined by the previous guest, comedian Ben Elton.
Uncle Gaybo asked him the following question:
Gay Byrne: “How do you respond to the old cliché, Cliff, you’re too good to be true?”
Cliff Richard: “Well I suppose what can you do about truths?”
Byrne: “You really are asking for it, aren’t you?”
Richard: “You’ve brought out the absolute worst in me. I’ve said, I’ve spent since 26 years ago, I became a Christian so my lifestyle took on a whole new look and feel for me which I really enjoy. And ah I feel it’s the right thing for me to do. And I’ve spent nearly all that time saying to people ‘You can’t..’. The media do want to put us into bags. They want to compartmentalize us and say well he’s the goody two-shoes. And for a little while it was Bob Geldof and I had the weight taken off my shoulders for a little while you know. He was Saint Bob for a while.”
Ben Elton: “But he kept swearing and that was the end of that. You’ve got to do that. Swear more.”
Richard: “But I’ve been saying to people it’s crazy if people actually believe that people like myself are too good to be true, then they just don’t understand human nature at all. Nobody is perfect. Nobody. All I want to do is show my best side rather than my worst. There is a side of me that I don’t like and I try to what’s the word sub..what’s it?”
Elton: “Em..subdue it..?”
Richard: “Sublimate it.”
Elton: “Cover it up.”
Richard: “And obviously I succeed. So it’s a side of me I don’t want to share necessarily. And I guess a lot of people just don’t understand it. And so I get labelled ‘the goody two-shoes’. And it just means that I don’t cuss and swear at people or perhaps it means that I’m just nice with people and they consider that… What I don’t understand is though that is a kind of reversal of things isn’t it? So that nowadays people like myself it’s a derogatory term ‘Ugh the goody two-shoes’. In other words, trying to be right and good is becoming a thing that you deride.”
Sir Cliff Richard: ‘allegations are completely false’ (Channel 4 News)
Cliff Richard’s home searched by police following sexual abuse claim (The Guardian)
