Entertainment
The Simpsons super fan Roman Kemp left speechless as Bart surprises him live on radio: ‘Best thing that has happened to me’
Roman Kemp was left pretty much speechless as he was surprised by his all-time favourite Bart Simpson live on the radio.
The Capital FM presenter, 28, is a self-confessed super fan of The Simpsons, so much so that he even has a tattoo of Bart inked onto his leg.
His radio show co-hosts wanted to surprise him and managed to get the voice of Bart, Nancy Cartwright, to call into Capital FM’s breakfast show without Roman knowing.
Roman thought he was interviewing Katy Perry on Monday morning and was visibly shocked in a video shared on Twitter when he heard Bart’s voice.
As he greeted Katy, Nancy shot back: ‘Katy Perry, what? This isn’t Katy Perry. I’m Bart Simpson, who the hell are you? Roman. Dude. Gotcha.’
I’m A Celebrity star Roman was floored and it took him a while to get his words out, as he replied: ‘Oh my god. Nancy Cartwright, hello. This is… I really thought… I don’t know what to say. Can you explained what’s going on please?’
Roman’s co-host Sian Welby revealed: ‘Sonny and I had a bit of a plan, we thought we would surprise Roman with his absolute hero. This is a face he has tattooed on his leg and he’s been a fan of Bart Simpson his entire life. So we pulled a few strings and managed to get the voice of Bart and other Simpsons characters, Nancy Cartwright, on the show.’
Sonny explained that Roman finally had his chance to ask Nancy anything he wanted to, with Roman confessing he’d been waiting to interview the voice actor since 2004.
‘Katy can step aside for a minute. We can call her and tell her that this is way better,’ Roman cried.
‘I’m sorry, but she’ll just have to deal with that. I’ve been wanting to do this interview since the moment I watched Inside The Actor’s Studio. It was a long, long time ago.’
He asked Nancy, who voices multiple characters on The Simpsons, which is her favourite to voice asides from Bart, prompting her to respond: ‘Roman, that’s like asking me which of my kids I like the best – they’re all mine.’
As she tipped Nelson Mandela Muntz and Ralph Wiggum as some of her faves, Nancy also threw her two cents in when it came to why The Simpsons is able to predict so many things that happen IRL.
A big one was the show predicting Donald Trump would become the US president.
‘What is with that? These guys are so smart,’ Nancy said of the show’s writers.
‘All I can say is, it’s probably just we’ve been on the air for so long, it’s kind of a numbers game. Trump, for example, I know that the writers just thought who is the most ridiculous worldwide-known personality that would never ever be considered our president? And they all agreed it would be Trump. That’s how it happened.’
Chuffed to bits with getting to pick Nancy’s brains, Roman gushed: ‘This is, honestly, probably one of the best things that has ever happened in my life.’
The interview came after fans recently saw Roman front a moving documentary about men’s mental health for BBC titled Our Silent Emergency.
The episode saw Roman, who recently lost his best friend and producer Joe Lyons, opening up about his own struggles and he addressed a particularly low moment for him that came around a year before Joe had died.
Roman said he was ‘caught out by my own brain’ and had considered taking his own life, before reaching out to his mum Shirlie and phoning her.
The star was highly praised for raising awareness of men’s mental health and was left ‘overwhelmed’ by the response the documentary received online.
Appearing on BBC Breakfast, Roman said: ‘This was something that I approached the team about at BBC Three about making and everyone said to me at the time, is this too soon to make for you?
‘I used this as my own therapy because Joe and I, what we did for a living, was make content that makes people laugh and I knew I wanted to do this almost as one last project together to try and make some form of difference.’
He continued: ‘Seeing the response, seeing the fallout from it and seeing how much people are now starting a conversation and taking things from the documentary into their own lives, is completely overwhelming.’
Roman Kemp: Our Silent Emergency is available to watch via BBC iPlayer.
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