Is this the worst celebrity diet you’ve ever seen?
My first food memory is my mum Beryl telling me the things on my plate were chips, when they were actually parsnips. She was trying to make me eat something healthy, but she wasn’t fooling me. I knew they weren’t chips and was having none of it.
Electro legend Gary Numan, 67, avoids greens
Trying to get me to eat better has been an ongoing battle since I was born. First my mother, and now my wife Gemma. Only yesterday she gave me a vegan sausage roll, and lied to me, saying it was made with meat. People try to trick me all the time to make me more healthy.
My mum did all the cooking when I was growing up in Wraysbury, Berkshire – but was she any good? I have no idea. I’m a barbarian when it comes to food, and I eat terribly. I just have chips and sausages. I don’t eat any greens at all.
I once went to see Queen play in Tokyo, and afterwards they had a big party at a sushi restaurant. Everyone’s sitting down and eating, save me. I don’t like sushi. Freddy Mercury comes over and says, ‘Darling, why are you not eating?’ I say I’m perfectly all right, and just so happy to be here at this cool evening. Freddie then organised his security man to go out and pick up a McDonald’s. So I ate McDonald’s in a Tokyo sushi restaurant, ordered by Freddie Mercury. And that was the last thing I ever ate in Japan.
My McDonald’s order is always a plain Quarter Pounder, with nothing on it at all. No salt, no cheese, no nothing. That, and a medium or large fries.
I don’t know if this is because I’m autistic, but I’m able to eat the same thing every day for months and months. When I’m at home in Los Angeles, breakfast is two eggs and a hash brown. Or a bacon sandwich. Then dinner is a sausage sandwich, with one sausage. Then in the evening some English chocolate – a Fudge bar or Caramac.
Numan’s dining companions Queen;
I don’t really drink, so I never put alcohol on my tour riders. And as I get a bit nervous before gigs I don’t really eat, so I don’t ask for anything. The rider is less for me than for the band, so they can have what they want.
I hate pretty much everything my wife eats. She’s vegetarian, borderline vegan, and all her stuff smells horrendous, all garlicky and herby. We are so different from each other. I don’t even know the names of most of the stuff she eats. All I know is that it smells terrible, and I often have to sit somewhere else so I can enjoy my own food.
He loves a Marmite sandwich
My comfort food is white toast with butter. Anything else on top ruins a perfectly nice piece of toast. I also like sandwiches – salmon, peanut butter, Marmite and, if I’m being really adventurous, ham. When you consider a ham sandwich exotic, you see the problem.
I don’t drink water because I genuinely believe I’m allergic to it. If I drink more than one glass, it makes my tummy feel horrible. My favourite drink used to be Coca-Cola, but now it’s Coke Zero. I drink a lot of Coke Zero.
I do miss a proper British pub lunch. Even though I don’t drink, there’s something about sitting on the grass outside a lovely pub. I just love that atmosphere.
My last supper would be Gemma’s roast dinner, with roast potatoes and her Yorkshire pudding. But I’d have a sausage instead of beef or lamb – two if I’m feeling special. We’ve found an LA company that does decent British sausages. It amazes me that I’ve got through life this far, still reasonably slim, without any ailments. I’ve done nothing to earn that with my diet. Nothing at all.
Gary Numan is on tour in the UK from 11 to 30 Nov; garynuman.com
