Justin Hawkins' very first girlfriend has revealed how he seduced her wearing only a leopard print thong and a Viking helmet. Kathryn Biddle dated The Darkness frontman for three years when he was still a student.
On February 2004 Kathryn Biddle was interviewed by 'News of the World'.
Give Justin Hawkins the gloom of a pop festival tent and that boy can really bring the house down. That's just what he did as a young unknown heavy metal fan tens years ago while romping under the canvas at Reading with his first true love.
"We were writhing about when suddenly one of Justin's long legs shot sideways and hit the pole," laughs blonde beauty Kathryn Biddle. "The whole tent started caving in and collapsing around us. I had to bend back and shove the pole back in before the flap opened over us and showed the rest of the crowd what we were up to."
It's one of a string of bizarre but fond memories that 28-year-old Justin's former fiancee Kathryn reveals exclusively to the News of the world. She tells how they got engages by swapping NOSE RINGS, lived in poverty on a diet of BAKED BEANS and how Justin would WARBLE to her as they made love.
Kathryn spent three years with the long-haired lead singer of the band that's taken Britain by storm - and was one of the first to hear that distinctive falsetto voice...in her bedroom.
"He would always be prancing around the house wailing like a good 'un," recalled office worker Kathryn, 29. "And it didn't stop when we got into bed. He would try to make me laugh by screaming as only he can when we were in the throes of passion. Whenever I hear his songs that's all I can think of!"
Justin also tried out prototypes of his trademark leopardskin stage gear on Kathryn...except in those days he was more into grungey Y-fronts than the revealing pants he's famous for today.
"I'd been on holiday in Tunisia for a week withoug Justin and he was waiting for me upstairs at my parents' house when I got back," says Kathryn. "I walked in and there he was lying on my bed in a pair of tiny leopard-print Y-front pants which didn't leave much to the imagination. They had a big horrible brown Y on them and were really funny - but they weren't on for very long."
And the squeaky-voiced rock idol put on a bedspring-busting performance as always. "Justin is a definite ten out of ten in bed," says Kathryn. "And all I am saying about his main instrument is that anyone who wears trousers as tight as he does only dares put them on if they are well-endowed!"
They made love anywhere they could - especially in Justin's old Fiat van, nicknamed Betsy. "It was quite tight in the back but I am only small and Justin's body is quite lithe and bendy, so we didn't mind," says Katherine. "We rocked it so much that sometimes I thought that we might bounce it right down the road. That was our live love-den on wheels." Now Justin is rocking the world with his band's brand of 70s-style music. The Darkness's four times-platinum alubm Permission To Land and their hit single I Believe In A Thing Called Love have made them hot favourites to scoop FOUR gongs at the Brits this month.
And Justin, 28 - whose bandmates are brother Dan, Ed Graham and Frankie Poullain - is getting used to a life of chauffeur driven limos and five star hotels as the group conquer the music world. In December he dumped his second fiancee Sue Whitehouse - also The Darkness's manager after falling for mullet-haired girl rocker Jennifer Stephens, who sings for US band Young Heart Attack.
It's all a far cry from the days when he and Kathryn fell in love as hard-up media students at Lowestoft College in Suffolk. "At the time he had long, wavy hair, a long coat and a long scarf," she sighed. "He wasn't really heavy metal, but had more of a grungey, crusty appearance really.
"For the first six months after we moved in together we had to sit on deck chairs because we couldn't afford a sofa. We lived off baked beans on toast. If we were really rolling in it, we'd have pot noodles. Everyone sees him thrashing around on stage but his job when he was living with me was the washing up. He used to practise his music a lot in the spare room. But I'd have a go at him if he was strumming away when I was watching TV."
Kathryn, of Norwich, remembers with affection the day Justin proposed to her.
"We were at home and Justin got down on bended knee and did the opening of the box thing. The ring was £24.99 from Argos - but I didn't care because I was so in love with him. We also swapped nose rings. We went together to get our noses pierced - we were both dreading it. But it was our way of handing each other a symbol of our love like other couples do."
But their relationship went off the boil as Justin's dreams of stardom began to overtake him.
After going on a business adminstration course when he got kicked out of Kathryn's college, Justin decided to move to Huddersfield University to stupid music in 1997.
"There was talk about me going with him - but it was never going to happen," says Kathryn. "I cried and cried the day I saw him off at the train station. There were lots of phone calls which neither of us could end. I would be in tears and so would he. But I didn't want to stand in his way. I always knew he'd be famous one day - and I'll never forget those years we had together."