Paloma Faith reveals 'awful' onstage duet with Chaka Khan left her in tears

Paloma Faith reveals 'awful' onstage duet with Chaka Khan left her crying her eyes outRadio 2, BBC

Transcript

00:00Which have you, which have you gone for?

00:01I've gone for I'm Every Woman, Shaka Khan.

00:04The reason why I picked it was because early on in my career after album one,

00:08this is mental and I'm going to sound really name-dropping now.

00:12I was asked to play for Prince's own festival in Copenhagen called New Power Generation Festival

00:22and I didn't even know Prince knew I existed and it was very overwhelming as it was because

00:26just after one album and I just didn't know what I was doing.

00:30I didn't even plan to be in music.

00:32While she was on stage, Shaka Khan's security guard came up to me.

00:38He towered above me, looked down at me and he goes,

00:40Shaka, once you sing this song with her.

00:42Because I was just watching from the side and there's 40,000 people in the audience

00:47and he put the mic in my hand and I think that Shaka Khan,

00:50because I'm a feminist and I'd sort of told her that I was,

00:54assume that I knew all the words and I didn't.

00:57So I got pushed on to stage in front of 40,000 people and I only knew the chorus,

01:02which her backing vocalists were singing and she pointed at me for verse two

01:08and I just went, I mouthed to her, I don't know the words.

01:12And then it was so awful and then I sort of ad-libbed and was like,

01:16she's every woman, ah yeah, like kind of thing.

01:21And I was trying to make it a thing, but it was obviously completely fell on its feet.

01:25And then she put her arm around me as we walked off stage and she went,

01:28you can sing girl, but I need to teach you this song.

01:32She laughed and then I just went to my dressing room and cried my eyes out.

01:36I was like, I called my mum and I said, I want to sign up for teacher training, it's time.

01:41And so I cried and cried and cried.

01:43And when I opened the dressing room door,

01:44there was loads of like people from that festival clapping.

01:48They were like, you were so dope.