Ant and Dec: We've only ever brawled once

Ant and Dec: We've only ever brawled once
Ant and Dec: We've only ever brawled once

Ant and Dec say they have only fallen out twice in more than 20 years of friendship. Cheeky TV duo Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly, both 33, say they have always been the best of friends apart from a drunken physical fight aged 18 while on tour in Spain and a row over a board game in 1999. The I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! hosts, who live three doors away from each other, made the revelations in their new autobiography, which is being serialised in The Sun Ant and Dec - who met starring as PJ and Duncan on Byker Grove in the early 1990s and have only ever spent two weeks apart - say that at 18 they went to Torremolinos to perform live in GMTV as pop duo PJ and Duncan but an all day drinking session turned into a misunderstanding and they had a brawl by their hotel lift. Ant said: "Over the years a lot of people have speculated on the best cures for a hangover, but I'm pretty sure no one's ever suggested performing PJ and Duncan's Stuck On U live on GMTV in Torremolinos. "It was the last thing either of us wanted to do and over that shared feeling of embarrassment we put our friendship back together. I turned to Dec and said, 'Thank God we're still p*****'. We both started to laugh, did the song and were mates again." Dec added: "And that's our only big fight. Although we did have an argument over a Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? board game."

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.