I had to give drunken Kate Moss a kick to make sure she was still alive, reveals DJ to the stars Fat Tony
HE once told Madonna to ‘f* off’, turned down £5,000 cash to play for Rihanna and got Kate Moss so drunk he had to keep kicking her to check she was all right.
Fat Tony has been the celebs’ favourite DJ for more than three decades, and in his outrageously candid new book he charts his raucous years as one of club-land’s best-loved figures.
Chatting to The Sun, he says: “When I was seen to be doing gigs for Prince or Madonna or anyone of that calibre, anyone who came to town asked me to DJ at their party.
"Suddenly you become hot property. Don’t ask me why!”
Real name Tony Marnach, he was never fazed by reputations — and once STUNNED Madonna by talking back to her like on one else had.
Tony, 56, writes in his book: “I played for Madonna twice.
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"The first time it was the after-party for a gig the record label had organised and the second was for her birthday. “
Madonna comes over and asks me to spice it up and I remember telling her to f* off.
“‘Did you just tell me to f* off?’ she said. ‘No one ever tells me to f* off. I like your sass. Keep playing’. And high-fives me!”
Tony’s good pal, Eighties pop legend Boy George, looked on stunned, and said: “I can’t believe you just told Madonna to f*** off and that you’re still standing here.”
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Tony says: “He was absolutely horrified.”
The DJ writes: “Playing for Madonna was amazing. Playing for Prince was amazing, playing for Wham! The Final at Wembley Stadium was amazing, doing their after-party at the Hippodrome was amazing.
"They closed off all the streets of London. They just wouldn’t do that now.
"It was at a time when celebrities really were celebrities, they were untouchable, they didn’t have their Instagram account open to you. They were superstars.”
But Tony says that sometimes being invited into a megastar’s inner sanctum was not all it was cracked up to be.
He tells The Sun of his gigs: “I did Michael Jackson about three or four times and he said hello to me once and that was it.
“It wasn’t one of those moments I thought, ‘I’m going to re-member this for ever’.
"I was like, ‘OK’. It was just another person, doing another job. “I was never fazed by who they were.
“I must have played for Prince about ten times. The Prince thing, it was so boring.
"I mean, it was amazing but I was booked to play the after-party for Prince, and I did, but he insisted on playing for the majority of it.
“Seriously, he’d already done a gig and now he did another two-hour set, this time for just 200 people.
"We were like, ‘Is he doing another fing guitar solo?’ I just wanted to get on and play some records.”
Tony has been best mates with supermodel Kate Moss since meeting her in 1993 at Soho club Fred’s, where he was the resident DJ, when she was 19 and he 28.
Kate is now 48 and Tony writes: “I loved her from the moment I met her.
"I used to make her Long Island iced teas and she’d get so p***ed I’d tuck her under the desk downstairs (in the club) to have a sleep and go down every now and again to give her a little kick to check she was all right.”
When London celebrity hangout Annabel’s threw its 50th Anniversary party in 2013, Tony joined forces with Kate to do the music.
He writes: “She didn’t want to do it on her own. So we came up with Fat Moss.
“We did it with Grace Jones, who was on first.
SPANKS WITH A WHIP
"She was hula-hooping, as she always does, and Kate crawled into the hula hoop and Grace started trying to spank her with a whip.
"It was nuts. I remember Harry Styles being there, just as he was the biggest thing going on in pop music, and dancing in front of the DJ booth all night.
“The Spice Girl, Mel B, kept trying to come into the DJ booth and Kate just told her to f* off.
"A girl from Leeds should know never to take on a supermodel from Croydon.”
Tony says that after that, Fat Moss became the hottest DJ act.
He writes: “We were being booked to go everywhere.
“We went to Brazil to AmFar (Aids charity gala), we were flown in by helicopter to open clubs in Mykonos, Hong Kong, everywhere.
“When we were in Sao Paulo for AmFar it was just insane. We went to this guy’s house and he had a zoo.
"He’s one of two really famous brothers there, and they had a shark hanging from the ceiling covered in diamanté.”
Tony has been David and Victoria Beckham’s go-to DJ for years and last month played at their son Brooklyn’s star-studded wedding to US actress Nicola Peltz.
He tells The Sun: “It’s pretty remarkable doing the parents and then DJing for their kids.
“Everyone has a shelf life and I’ve just kept going. I’ve worked with Victoria and David and now I’m DJing for their kids. It’s mad.”
He tells in the book how in private Victoria is nothing like her public image.
He writes: “Playing for Victoria Beckham, and her asking me to play Spice Up Your Life while she brought on a drag tribute act to the Spice Girls, was genius.
“Considering her public persona for so many years was dry as old bones and moody, in real life she’s f***ing hilarious.
"She’s got such a dry sense of humour, that’s a laugh a minute.”
He is also close with Sir Elton John and husband David Furnish, and adds in the book: “
Like Elton and David, Victoria and David have been fiercely loyal and booked me for everything they’ve done. You know, at the end of the day, I’m a good fing DJ!”
Not everyone gets Fat Tony to play for them, though.
'ABOUT SEVEN GRAMS A DAY'
At an after-party for an award presentation to British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful, at the Café Royal in London, he turned down Rihanna.
He writes: “As the party came to an end, Rihanna offered me £5k on the spot for us to take the decks to her suite and carry on playing.
"I said no, which felt like a real achievement. Remember, I’m the guy who could never stop, but even though the party had been brilliant it was time to call it a night.
"I’d had 28 years of never having done that, not once.”
Tony’s book recounts many hell-raising tales — like the time he hid from an unnamed hardman Hollywood actor after the DJ had led his model daughter astray.
Or when a female celeb was sent to rehab by her husband and manager after she went AWOL for four days with Tony.
He is now in talks with Netflix and others to dramatise his colourful life as a TV series.
But as well as the many highs he has enjoyed, his brutally honest book also charts some devastating lows.
He suffered from drug addiction for years — after Queen frontman Freddie Mercury gave him his first cocaine, in London in 1983, when Tony was 17.
He writes: “It was my first time at the nightclub Heaven.
He gave me the gram and told me to go and take it. I went to the toilets and tipped a bit on to my thumb. I wasn’t a Queen fan so didn’t know who he was.”
By the time Tony quit drugs 15 years ago, he estimates he had blown £1million. He writes: “I’m not exaggerating. I was doing about seven grams a day.”
Now, having turned his life around, he is committed to helping others with his popular podcast Recovery, which has featured confessional interviews with showbiz friends including Davina McCall, Lily Allen and Kelly Osbourne.
He tells The Sun: “I started my podcast because people were really struggling during lockdown.
'IT CAN HELP PEOPLE'
"Alcohol intake had gone through the roof, up by 80 per cent in six months, domestic abuse was on the increase.
"I thought, ‘I need to channel something here so people can see that there is a way out of these things’.
"By getting celebrities to talk about those things openly, it can help people.”
One person he tried to help was George Michael, who he had known since the early Eighties, when the former Wham! singer was in the middle of a well-publicised feud with Boy George.
He writes: “You were either in the Boy George camp or the George Michael camp, you couldn’t be in both.
"It was old-school pop rivalry, like the Stones and The Beatles, Blur and Oasis. You couldn’t be in the inner circle and friends with both.”
Two years before George Michael died in 2016, aged 53, Tony took Boy George to his house in Highgate, North London, for them to patch up their differences.
He writes: “The two Georges got on really well. We sat in the kitchen and chatted about the old times, about music.
“As we left, Gina (Tony’s name for Boy George) said he really feared for him and I said I didn’t think it would be long before there were ambulances at the house.
"GM was worse for wear and having lived that life for nearly 30 years, it’s not hard to recognise the signs.”
Tony hopes by being honest about his struggles, he can help others.
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He tells The Sun: “I have been 15 and a half years sober. If I can do this, anybody can do this.
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“People are really struggling and sometimes just really need to know other people are going through what they are going through.”
- I Don’t Take Requests, by DJ Fat Tony, (Coronet) is out on May 25, £20
