'Greg and Alex said it was one of the funniest things they'd seen'

Rosie Jones has revealed she landed her place on Taskmaster after doing an ad-hoc audition for hosts Greg Davies and Alex Horne in a bar.

The comic temporarily abandoned her date for the night to try to impress the pair – which she did in the most bizarre way.

‘I picked a flower out of the vase and ate it, stem and all, without losing eye contact,’ she reveals. ‘And to be fair, Greg and Alex did say that was the funniest thing they’d ever seen.’

Nor was it the only thing she did on that date that now makes her cringe. 

Speaking to Amy Spalding and Gareth Valentino on their podcast It Started With A Kiss, Jones explained that before they went on their first date ‘she had told me she liked to be dominated. So I was "OK, Daddy’s in the room."’

At the restaurant, the waiters presented the pair with the menus ‘and I took the menu off her and went, "I’m choosing what we order"…to be fair she was like, that’s hot.’

They then went to the private members club where she encountered Davies and Horne, and Jones added: ‘At the end of the date, my date said, "I would like to see you again, but next time can it not be an audition for Taskmaster?" and I was like, "fair"…I got the girl for a bit, and I got to go on Taskmaster.’

The comedian, who has cerebral palsy, also told the podcast how people wrongly assume she only dated other disabled people.

‘If I meet a great disabled woman, of course I’d date her, but I don’t limit myself to that,’ she said. While acknowledging there might be ‘common ground’ between disabled people, she added: ‘When I was single, I would never go, "oh wait no you’re a filthy non-disabled dickhead, get out…go and find a disability! I don’t care what it is but if you don’t come back blind, deaf or an amputee you’re gone!"’

She also spoke about taking a long time to properly acknowledge her sexuality – even though the first boy she ever kissed at school instantly knew.

‘My first ever kiss… was with my best friend from school,’ she said. ‘Physically it was hilarious because I’m 5ft 1in and he was 6ft 5in.  We kissed and it was awful  – like really bad. 

‘We pulled away and he immediately went, "I’m gay." And I went, "Oh amazing! Okay well done" and he looked at me and he went "You’re gay too".

’I was sixteen at the time and I said, "Yeah I am, but I’m not ready to go into that".’

And when she was finally ready to come out,  he was the first person she told. 

Discussing why she took a relatively long time to come to terms with being a lesbian, she said: ‘I went on such a queer journey. I literally made it part of my stand-up but growing up, whenever I had gay thoughts, I would go, "Oh, no, I’m not gay, I’m disabled!"…I can’t tick two boxes, it takes me long to tick one!

‘But not to get too serious because we are having a lovely time and I love my community but I think we can do a lot more in terms of intersectionality and as a disabled gay woman, I never felt part of the cool bars and cool spaces.

‘I was never upset growing up but I thought I would never come out because I’m disabled and disabled people don’t fall in love, don’t get married, don’t have children and that’s because I never saw that. 

‘It took me until I was in my late 20s… but when I came out, when I became confident, when I felt worthy of love and became a comedian, I was out every night working, so I didn’t have time to date…

‘And then when I did date and if I was ever on dating apps, I get that thing when people say "Oh my god, are you that comedian?". I won’t name names, but there are some male comedians who love fans but that was never my bag, all of that meant dating was so hard but luckily I’m fit!’

Jones is now in a relationship, and she explained how they met in a bar:  ’She came over to me and complimented me on my jumpsuit and my Doc Martens, which is code for "Hello, I’m gay, I know you’re gay. We are flirting right now" 

‘It was so lovely because usually if we meet on a dating app, it’s like "Will I fancy them?" Will there be chemistry? but we did all that on date zero…we had a cheeky snog. So it meant that on our official first date, we were like, great we fancy each other, there’s chemistry and it was so PG. We just chatted for hours.’

However, her assertion that an in-person meet-cute was better than a dating app might not impress the sponsor of the It Started With A Kiss podcast – Tinder.

Published: 5 May 2026