'I nearly came out vegan': Rylan Clark dresses in suit made of meat for Lady Gaga inspired outfit

EXCLUSIVE The star says designers hit a snag when the doner meat they ordered from a supermarket was substituted with ham
Rylan Clark describes wearing a tux made of doner meat for new campaign
2024 Deliveroo Restaurant Awards
Tina Campbell8 January 2024
The Weekender

Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for exclusive competitions, offers and theatre ticket deals

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Rylan Clark has shared his horror at having to dress head-to-toe in doner kebab meat for his latest gig, saying it almost made him turn vegan.

The usually meat-loving TV and radio star, 35, found himself questioning his food choices when asked to recreate some of his favourite and most iconic awards season moments with a fun foodie twist to announce the return of Deliveroo’s Restaurant Awards for 2024 and his new role on the judging panel. 

In addition to Rihanna’s much memed yellow pizza cape and Jennifer Laurence's fall at the Oscars, Clark channeled Lady Gaga's famous raw meat dress as a kebab tux.

The quirky ensemble, which comprised of a jacket and trousers, plus, a pita bread fashioned as a fascinator, had to be kept in a cold storage room ahead of the photo shoot.

Rylan's kebab tux
Deliveroo Restaurant Awards 2024

According to the Essex native, the reason for this was not only practical due to the material's perishable nature, but because there was no way he would have worn it had he seen it in advance.

Speaking to The Standard, the BBC Radio 2 host explained: "I won’t lie, I didn’t realise I would be head-to-toe in doner meat. I’m telling you now, I can still smell it!

"They had to keep the blazer and the trousers in a cold room, like a cold storage room whilst I was doing the other shoots and they wouldn’t show me it because I think they know I would’ve gone ‘f*** off, I’m not doing it’.

"Then all of a sudden it came out and I mean the poor stylists, god bless’em the pair of them, they really worked for it," he continued.

Lady Gaga in her famous raw meat dress at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards
Getty Images

"The funniest thing is they were telling me that when they were getting the doner meat, because obviously they had to get it the night before and start the outfit and stuff, you couldn’t pre prep it, they did an online order, not with Deliveroo, just a shopping order to get a load of blank doner meat and it was substituted with ham! So they needed to actually go out and just get doner off a spear!"

In case you were wondering whether the former X Factor finalist had been tempted to have a little nibble in-between posing up a storm, the answer is a definite no.

"Absolutely not!" he said, horrified at the suggestion. "I nearly came out of there vegan!" he laughed.

Asked if the experience had given him a new appreciation for the raw beef outfit Lady Gaga wore to the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, he said it had, but felt that the Born This Way hit-maker got the better end of the deal, joking: "Raw meat might have smelt better".

Rylan Clark with a pizza cape in a nod to Rihanna's 2015 Met Gala dress
Deliveroo Restaurant Awards 2024

Otherwise, Clark said teaming up with the food delivery service was somewhat of a dream job for him and believes he is well qualified to be on the panel for the awards because he says he's their "top customer".

Launching on January 8, the awards celebrates and recognises the very best and most-loved restaurants across the country, voted for by the public.

He said: "I’ve wanted to work with Deliveroo for a long time because I genuinely think I’m their top customer. When they came along I was like ‘finally, I can get my money back!’

"Every time I’ve seen the Deliveroo guys out and about, I’ve always said ‘when are we working together?’ because I literally keep the company afloat."

Rylan Clark is joining the judging panel for the Deliveroo Restaurant Awards 2024. The awards celebrate the best and most-loved restaurants across the country. Cast your vote at deliveroorestaurantawards.com.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in