I have found an enemy to fuel my spite (and thus my everyday life): Curtis Pritchard.
Yes, the brother of AJ Pritchard. The one from Love Island, then The Greatest Dancer (??), then Celebs Go Dating. The man who wants to be the person who gets up and makes everyone a coffee, so everyone’s ready for the morning.
His latest offence is not, shockingly, being the antithesis of sexual tension and hanging out with Wayne Lineker, but the leak of some of his jokes from his upcoming standup comedy set.
These jokes are not funny. We could get into how they’re misogynistic, but the crux of the matter is that they are stupid and don’t make any sense.
One compares working in a kennel to being in Love Island, because ‘there was bitches […] trying to ride each other’.
In another, Curtis says he likes whisky because ‘the flavour will never cheat on you', unlike his ex-girlfriend.
Neither of these make any sense, which makes the general rudeness of commenting negatively on extremely attractive women completely unforgiveable.
If you’re going to do the whole ex-girlfriend bashing thing while telling the world you’re cool because you drink whisky, surely the obvious choice would be this joke: ‘I like a smooth whisky, because it goes down easy… unlike my ex-girlfriend’.
See? That suggests his ex-girlfriend didn’t give enough blowjobs. Still offensive and stupid, but it follows some semblance of logic, because good whisky does indeed go down easy, whereas you would never describe a bad whisky as ‘cheating’ on you. If you’re going to do shit misogynistic comedy, at least make your jokes somewhat well-constructed.
This foray into stand-up comedy - yes, for charity, I know, but don’t let him get away with it - should come as no surprise to anyone who has been observing Curtis Pritchard from a distance.
He is a shining example of the classic white man who has been emboldened by the approval of women who are too hot for him.
We already saw this on Love Island, when he seemed to earnestly shocked that his declaration of attraction to Jourdan Riane wasn’t met with unbridled lust. I say shock, but it wasn’t that, really. It was more a total non-compute. Watch the video again. See how he simply does not understand that he is being rejected. Observe how he thinks that the problem is the existence of Amy, not the evident fact that Jourdan just isn’t into him.
Then he somehow managed to lure in Maura, who - bafflingly - declared him to be sexy and continued a relationship with him for months.
I don’t want to blame a woman for Curtis Pritchard’s actions, but Maura must understand the monster she empowered. She rewarded this hammy hip-wriggling man’s behaviour and told him that yes, he really does deserve to be with someone so gorgeous.
So thus he followed all the usual pursuits of a white man who is over six foot tall: terrible flirting, the belief that he is entitled to pursue the most beautiful, impressive women, then a podcast, then stand-up comedy.
Now he is near his final form. He is 6ft 2inches of white man confidence, running on Nespresso and audacity.
Since reading his ‘jokes’ I have developed a masochistic habit of watching Curtis Pritchard’s Instagram stories.
In the space of 24 hours, he praised a brand giving 1% (ONE! PER! CENT!) of its profits to charity - while giving a discount code for 10% off. He clarified that he was not being paid for this shoutout. He did some sponcon for a coffee machine. He made three cups of coffee, each time playing a different song in the background and using that filter that adds the lyrics. Having checked since that initial binge, it appears that the coffee plus song story is a regular feature. On Sunday he made some sort of creamy latte as Miley Cyrus’s Adore You played. Are the lyrics meant to be directed at the coffee? I don’t want to ponder it.
I can already feel myself becoming obsessed. I know that I will continue to look at his Instagram and feel a burning rage at his quizzically raised brow, fury at his facial expression in the photos of him doing a ‘snow angle’, despair as he grins and squints his way through another Celebs Go Dating clip. When you look into the void of Curtis Pritchard’s eyes, the void stares back, and asks: why are you devoting this negative energy to a reality star? #BeKind.
The thing is, I strongly believe in the power of having an enemy who has no idea you exist. In the drudgery of lockdown, it’s oh so necessary to be able to escape your four walls by getting sucked into the world of a tone-deaf celeb, dissecting every part of his posts and occassionally letting out an ‘ughhhhh’.
Obviously you should not take this energy to the actual person. Do not harass your nemesis or troll them. That’s not the point. Plus, if you choose poorly you’ll get them crashing into your inbox to accuse you of gaslighting (who’s that? Someone whose name rhymes with Shameela Shamil?).
This must be a fight that takes place in your own mind, and never descends into anything deeper than poking fun and allowing them to distract you from the nightmares of your real life.
Had a shit day at work? Analyse your celebrity enemy’s most recent photos and determine whether they make the same three faces in every picture. Struggling with the thought that everything you’re doing is pointless? Take a look at all the brands they’ve promoted and wonder what this reveals about them. Struck by the realisation that we continue to live through a pandemic, and things really won’t ever go back to the way they were? Perhaps you can scroll to their comment section and create a spiderweb in your mind of all the celebs who regularly comment.
We all need a new passion project, and while the ‘good’ ‘productive’ people might choose writing a book or starting an embroidery brand on Etsy, the rest of us can absolutely settle for picking the scab of midly famous people being annoying.
If you need some suggestions to get you started, I would recommend other previous Celebs Go Dating alum, Tallia Storm, or iconic rule-breaker Rita Ora.