{"id":474528,"date":"2026-05-08T09:21:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T09:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/474528\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T09:21:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T09:21:11","slug":"emer-mclysaght-if-id-met-matt-damon-with-his-supervalu-bag-id-have-jumped-into-the-sea-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/474528\/","title":{"rendered":"Emer McLysaght: If I\u2019d met Matt Damon with his SuperValu bag, I\u2019d have jumped into the sea \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you ever see me in a hastily taken selfie with a celebrity<\/a> I have no business being in contact with, take it as a sign that I\u2019ve been kidnapped and the photo is some kind of elaborate ransom demand. Call Interpol. Mobilise the CIA. Do whatever it takes to get me out of the grips of the international terrorist organisation that has lifted me from my home in the dead of night and forced me to pose with Meryl Streep<\/a> or Will.i.am. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m absolutely allergic to the concept of approaching a celeb with the intention of an interaction or a photo. The very idea sends my cringe muscles into a spasm. Whenever I\u2019ve expressed this opinion, friends have tried to call my bluff, claiming that if I was, say, sitting across from Taylor Swift<\/a> on a plane \u2013 a deeply unlikely scenario given that she likes to pollute the Earth with the fumes from her private jet \u2013 I wouldn\u2019t be able to resist asking her for a snap. <\/p>\n

False. I would sooner make things infinitely more strange by pretending not to know who she is, than make her do the polite selfie-with-a-fan pose. I would run in the opposite direction if I saw Harry Styles<\/a> jogging towards me in his tiny shorts. I would be rudely engrossed in my menu if Stanley Tucci<\/a> sat beside me in a restaurant and asked me if he could borrow my salt. <\/p>\n

If I had encountered Matt Damon that time he went swimming with his SuperValu bag at the Vico Baths I would have tipped myself into the sea and floated off towards the horizon rather than acknowledge his presence. <\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong, I love celebrities and their carry-on as much as the next person. I devour all the goss from the Oscars after-parties every year. I was absolutely glued to the Met Gala looks<\/a> this week and the event brought the stars to New York like ants converging on a dropped burger bun morsel at a barbecue. <\/p>\n

However, if I somehow happened to be in NYC and spotted Hudson Williams \u2013 he of Heated Rivalry<\/a> fame and my current number one favourite A-lister \u2013 exiting a hotel I would prise open the nearest manhole cover and slip into the inky depths beneath rather than trouble him. <\/p>\n

I can think of only two instances where I inserted myself into a photo opportunity with a celebrity who had no idea who I was. In 2010 I was working in radio and operating out of a Portakabin in the backstage area of the Oxegen festival in Punchestown. <\/p>\n

The band Thirty Seconds to Mars were due in for an interview. Jared Leto, the actor, singer and star of my teenage TV obsession My So-Called Life \u2013 he played brooding mega hunk Jordan Catalano \u2013 was going to be breathing my same air. He was going to be taking photos for the radio station website anyway, so I allowed a colleague to shove me in beside him for a snap. Do I regret it? No. Does he have the haunted eyes of a man who just wants to be left alone? Yes. <\/p>\n

\"JaredJared Leto posed, reluctantly, for a photo. Photograph: Henry Nicholls\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

My second, and most prized photo is with Michael D Higgins. If you think for a second I was going to attend one of the \u00c1ras summer parties and not wait my turn for a snap with Miggeldy among the flower beds and giant dogs then you are stone mad. Besides, just like Jared Leto before him, Michael D was at work. He knew he was going to have to pose for a million photos that day, and during every day of his presidency. I wasn\u2019t putting him out. <\/p>\n

Maybe that\u2019s my issue. I have a pathological fear of inconveniencing anyone or putting anyone out and so often when I see those hastily snatched selfies the star in question looks frightened, annoyed, exhausted or all three. That very specific frenzied need to interact sends a shiver of nope through my nervous system. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0First Look: The Irish artists at Venice Biennale 2026, the \u2018Olympics of the art world\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

I chose to tailor my celebrity interactions in a more socially distanced way. I have a friend whose line of work means that they work with and socialise with top-tier celebrities regularly. I like to get my A-list kicks by messaging sick little requests like \u201cwhat did he smell like?\u201d or \u201cdid she seem like she\u2019d get a round in?\u201d or \u201cwill you ask them if they were Team Brooklyn Beckham or Team Victoria?\u201d. <\/p>\n

But look, if I got stuck in a lift with Taylor Swift and we ended up harmonising on some of our favourite songs, would I record a video and upload it to my Instagram Stories with her consent? Yes. I\u2019m only human. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you ever see me in a hastily taken selfie with a celebrity I have no business being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[18,51021,117,2215,14323,19,17,8000,4112,1874,7012,973],"class_list":{"0":"post-474528","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-emer-mclysaght","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-for-you","12":"tag-harry-styles","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-matt-damon","16":"tag-met-gala","17":"tag-michael-d-higgins","18":"tag-oscars","19":"tag-taylor-swift"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116538224501538055","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}