Of all the things that could get you kicked out of church, accidental blasphemy has to be among the funniest. And that’s pretty much what happened to Blur bassist Alex James.
In his recent autobiography Over The Rainbow: Tales from an Unexpected Year, James shared a hilarious story of being asked to leave a church party in 2023 after he ashed his cigarette onto a “naked baby Jesus” figurine that was part of the decor.
“I had been smoking in the room with the art and the objects, as usual,” Alex James wrote in his book, via the Metro. “Someone I didn’t know had said, ‘I’m not sure if you’re allowed to smoke in here’. I’d dutifully picked up a little ashtray on the sideboard where I was leaning and extinguished my cigarette.”
“Sadly, unlike some staterooms,” James continued, “not everything in this one was actually an ashtray.” He then shared how the faux pas went down and it’s even worse than you were prepared for.
“I’d happened upon an antique figurine of the naked baby Jesus and stubbed my fag-end out by rubbing it around in his crotch, quite obliviously,” James explained, then adding that, in addition to desecrating it, he also accidentally broke the figurine.
“When I was alerted to what I’d done by the person who’d asked me to stop smoking, I tried to put a positive spin on it,” the Blur bassist penned. “I picked baby Jesus back up to demonstrate his robustness by tugging one of his little arms. The arm came off along with a plume of impossibly fine, glittering, powdery dust.”
Alex James said he “managed to wedge it back on,” so, no harm, no foul? Who am I kidding… that’s quite the (church) party foul.
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