...and during confession too!

Frank Skinner has revealed how he almost came to blows with a priest during confession.

The comic is a practising Catholic who prays twice a day and attends Mass – but says he hasn’t been to confession since a bizarre encounter at Westminster Cathedral a few years ago.

‘I started talking to the priest in a ruminative way about what my last confession had been like and whether I thought I'd moved on and improved,’ the 66-year-old told the Daily Mail. ‘But the priest said, "Come on, just tell me your sins. We haven't got all day."

'He was American. I said I was trying to put it into context but he said, "Tell me your freaking sins, will you?" 

‘I said, "I tell you what, I think we'll leave it." And then I said, probably unwisely, "I think you might need to ask yourself if you're in the right job." 

‘So I stepped out of the confession box, the priest also stepped out, furious, with his fists literally clenched. I said, "You're going to beat me up?"

'The people in the queue were shocked, the priest is never supposed to see the confessee. They thought there must have been a fire. 

‘He said, "Get back in the box", like some terrible old ventriloquist. So I got back in and he just said, "That's it. OK, I forgive your sins."

'I didn't even get a chance to tell him anything. If I'd killed someone I would have had it cleared off the slate. I was shaking. So that put me off.’

The comic was talking to the newspaper to promote his upcoming Edinburgh Fringe run of his new stand-up show, 30 Years Of Dirt.

Published: 30 Jul 2023