James Blunt: ‘Los Angeles is a shallow as a puddle, and I’ve blended in there very well’

The singer often jousts with his online critics and says that seeing the funny side is an all-too-scarce commodity in the music industry

James Blunt performs at BBC Radio 2 In The Park 2023 in Leicester, England. Photo: Getty

Barry Egan

For someone who has sold almost 20 million albums, James Blunt has more than his fair share of haters. Noel Gallagher called him boring, while Paul Weller said he would rather eat his own faeces than duet with him.

In 2005, Boris Johnson, reacting to the lyric of Blunt’s most famous song ‘You’re Beautiful’, said: “If she’s so beautiful, stop standing there in your T-shirt and floppy fringe, and hush your hopeless falsetto crooning. Go out and get her.” Blunt’s mother wrote to Johnson to complain. He wrote back to apologise.