Dawn French has revealed that she once told Eamonn Holmes to “dream on” after he reacted to her stories about kissing Brad Pitt and Hugh Grant. The comic said the exchange came during a This Morning appearance in which she talked about some of the more unlikely moments of her career, including a Hollywood kiss that started with a note passed across a restaurant table.
French, speaking to Best magazine, said the moment stuck with her because Holmes did not simply laugh along. Instead, after hearing her account, he told her, “You’re a bit of a one aren’t you?” and got a blunt answer back. It is the kind of throwaway TV exchange that lingers because it sounds half flirtation, half disbelief, and because French was ready with the sort of one-line comeback that has long made her an easy fit for live daytime television.
The story she was telling on the programme was built for gossip columns. French said she was in a restaurant with Jennifer Saunders when Terry Gilliam walked in with Brad Pitt, and she passed a note asking, “Make Brad kiss me like he’s in love with me.” She said Pitt then kissed her passionately and told her, “I’ll call you,” while Saunders’ chin hit the table as she watched. French has also said she locked lips with Hugh Grant in a Comic Relief sketch during Red Nose Day in 1995, adding another line to the sort of celebrity memory that tends to outlast the sketch itself.
What gives the anecdote its edge now is the setting around it. Holmes was hosting This Morning alongside Ruth Langsford at the time, and the exchange is being remembered against the backdrop of their split in May 2024 after 14 years of marriage. Holmes has since begun a relationship with Katie Alexander, while Langsford recently confirmed she is single and said on Heart Breakfast last month that she prefers meeting someone the “old-fashioned” way.
That leaves French’s “dream on” line doing more than landing a joke. It captures the way the interview played: Holmes opened the door with a playful question, and French shut it just as quickly. The missing detail is the date of that This Morning appearance, but the exchange has now become part of the public record of a daytime interview that blended Hollywood names, a studio host’s banter and a reply that ended the teasing before it could go anywhere else.
