Samantha Fox was one of the guests at the 10th anniversary of We Will Rock You, and she revealed it made her feel freshly nostalgic for "her friend Freddie".
In one of the more surprising showbusiness pairings, the blonde singer revealed that she had been befriended by the flamboyant Queen frontman Freddie Mercury when she first turned to music from modelling, back in the mid-1980s.
"He was very kind to me, lovely," she remembered. "And I ended up at a couple of his parties, too. Wild.
"My favourite song of his was The Show Must Go On," she said, obviously still moved. "It gets me every time."
The former model was dressed in suitably glam-rock garb ("got to look the part") for the event, which drew a huge crowd, and an eclectic guest list ranging from the TOWIE cast, to tennis player Pat Cash, to Robert De Niro.
De Niro wasn't saying much, whizzing along the red carpet just before the show began, but others were more forthcoming about their own music, including the smiling Fox, who confessed, despite her massive sales of Euro-pop which still gets her a gig on the Continent, she remains "a frustrated rocker, really". And Pat Cash, who plays in his own band, waxed lyrical on the band's influence on every wannabe rocker from the 70s onwards.
Other guest stars on the eclectic red carpet roll call included the men behind the music Brian May and Roger Taylor, their script collaborator on the music Ben Elton, actor couple Emma Thompson and Greg Wise, all-round witty creative Tim Minchin, pop singer Mark Shaw, and various reality-type folk.
