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Fatboy Slim took childhood violin lessons with Prime Minister Keir Starmer

Fatboy Slim and the Prime Minister went to school together and "still talk"

  • Words: Patrick Hinton | Keir Starmer portrait: ©House Of Commons
  • 1 March 2025
Fatboy Slim took childhood violin lessons with Prime Minister Keir Starmer

Fatboy Slim has spoken about growing up alongside Keir Starmer in a new interview with The Guardian.

The DJ, real name Norman Cook, and current Prime Minister were in the same class at school for five years, and took violin lessons together.

“I can’t actually remember the violin lessons. But I was in the same class at school as Keir for five years, so I remember him well. He must have been better at the violin than me, because I did it for about one term. My parents could take no more noise, so I would say Keir was better,” said Cook. “It is quite weird when one day you see someone on the telly and go, ‘Oh look, it is Keir Starmer from 4B.’ I think he’s one up on me by becoming prime minister.”

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Cook also revealed he has Starmer’s number and they still speak, as well as having Paul McCartney as a neighbour.

Responding to a question about the most famous person in his phone, replied: “The prime minister! We still talk. Can you beat the British PM? Or maybe Paul McCartney. He used to be my neighbour. We talked about everything, from putting out the bins to music. He would bring my dog back round if she went missing. He was a great neighbour.”

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Cook also recounted an embarrassing memory of a starstruck interaction with Dave Berry where he “made a fool of [himself]” and his former feud with Moby, sharing “we fell out and we were on each other at that point. We were quite similar in what we were doing and I think that’s one of the reasons why we got into the feud.”

Read the full interview here.

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