Simply Red icon Mick Hucknall launched into an extraordinary rant at a fan at his own gig at the OVO Arena Wembley on Saturday during their 40th anniversary tour.
The crooner, 65, appeared to have become irked when a fan was making too much noise during one of his performances.
Addressing the fan, Mick said ‘shut it’ whilst pointing his finger at the crowd member, adding’put a sock in it! I’m sick of hearing it.’
Apologising to the rest of the crowd, he said: ‘I’m sorry about that but you know, I can’t concentrate – he’s yelling so loud.
‘You’ve come to hear me sing, not him, with the greatest respect.’
Simply Red are marking 40 years of hits with a string of gigs across Europe over the next month.
Simply Red icon Mick Hucknall launched into an extraordinary rant at a fan at his own gig at the OVO Arena Wembley on Saturday during their 40th anniversary tour
The crooner, 65, appeared to have become irked when a fan was making too much noise during one of his performances
In May they released a new film, titled Holding Back The Years: 40 Years of Simply Red, showcasing a spectacular performance from their recent tour in Santiago, Chile.
The movie captured the band’s performance at the Movistar Arena in Chile, where they played five consecutive sold-out shows to rapturous audiences as part of their Latin American tour leg, which saw them perform to over 140,000 fans.
Alongside their hit songs, which include Fairground and If You Don’t Know Me By Now, the band have also hit the headlines over the years thanks to Mick’s unlikely lothario status.
The frontman’s roster of exes reads like a who’s who of some of the world’s most beautiful women, including a relationship with Catherine Zeta-Jones in 1998, a short-lived romance with Ulrika Jonsson and liaisons with model Helena Christensen, Melanie Sykes, Lady Victoria Hervey, and Steffi Graf.
Another of his notable romances was with former ‘EastEnders’ actress Martine McCutcheon, who claims that the pair went on a disastrous date in 1996 that ended with her vomiting in his dreadlocks – a story Mick has furiously denied as a ‘sad little fantasy’.
Meanwhile, one of his would-be conquests Brigitte Nilsen somewhat unkindly described the singer as ‘not a very good-looking guy’, but hinted at what so many women saw in him, saying he was ‘outrageous, friendly and really cool’.
Given his very colourful past, it’s perhaps no wonder that his new concert film has been slapped with a trigger warning about ‘sexual’ content because of lyrics about sex and drinking, with the singer previously admitting to his fondness for booze – as well as trying ‘every drug’.
While discussing his love life in 2010, Mick famously said: ‘Between 1985 – 1987, I would sleep with about three women a day, every day.
Simply Red are marking 40 years of hits with a string of gigs across Europe over the next month (pictured in July 2023)
Alongside their hit songs, which include Fairground and If You Don’t Know Me By Now, the band have also hit the headlines over the years thanks to Mick’s unlikely lothario status
‘I never said no. This was what I wanted from being a pop star. I was living the dream and my only regret is that I hurt some really good girls.’
A documentary in 2004, entitled Is She Really Going Out With Him? added to the speculation after it claimed that the singer had slept with more than 3,000 women.
Then in 2006, when asked by the Daily Mail whether reports about his trysts was true, Mick said: ‘No, I’m guilty. It’s life’s experience. I think it’s searching for approval. Love me, admire me – something like that.
‘In most cases, though, it usually had to do with being drunk. You go into any city centre on a Friday or Saturday night and you see it going on all over the world.
‘There’s nothing particularly unusual about it but because of being famous it gets reported, it gets blown up. Ultimately, it doesn’t make you happy.’
Now a reformed hellraiser, he lives with his wife Gabriella Wesberry, who he married at Forter Castle in Perthshire, Scotland, in 2005, and their 17-year-old daughter Romy True.
