{"id":233754,"date":"2026-04-10T15:15:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T15:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/10\/he-could-eat-an-apple-through-a-tennis-racket-nell-campbell-was-shocked-by-freddie-mercurys-titanic-teeth\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T15:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T15:15:09","slug":"he-could-eat-an-apple-through-a-tennis-racket-nell-campbell-was-shocked-by-freddie-mercurys-titanic-teeth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/10\/he-could-eat-an-apple-through-a-tennis-racket-nell-campbell-was-shocked-by-freddie-mercurys-titanic-teeth\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;He could eat an apple through a tennis racket&#8230;&#8217; Nell Campbell was shocked by Freddie Mercury&#8217;s titanic teeth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"byline\">\n<p>        <time itemprop=\"datePublished\" content=\"2026-04-10\" datetime=\"1775834109\" pubdate=\"\">10 April 2026<\/time>\n    <\/p>\n<p>The Rocky Horror Show star Nell Campbell was always astonished by her friend <a href=\"https:\/\/www.femalefirst.co.uk\/freddie-mercury\/\" class=\"exposure-link \" data-linktrack=\"LinkTracker,articleExposure,freddie-mercury\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Freddie Mercury<\/a>&#8216;s huge teeth &#8211; joking &#8220;he could eat an apple through a tennis racket&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>                            <\/p>\n<p class=\"image-caption landscape\">The Rocky Horror Picture Show icon Nell Campbell<\/p>\n<p>The pair became friends before they both achieved stardom as they both worked stalls that were adjacent to each other in Kensington Market between 1969 and 1970.<\/p>\n<p>Nell can recall first seeing Freddie on the stall &#8211; which was owned by his Queen bandmate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.femalefirst.co.uk\/roger-taylor\/\" class=\"exposure-link \" data-linktrack=\"LinkTracker,articleExposure,roger-taylor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Roger Taylor<\/a> &#8211; sipping tea from a polystyrene cup and she remembers his startling overbite, which he eventually hid with a moustache when Queen became global rock icons.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to The Telegraph, she said: &#8220;Those teeth! He could eat an apple through a tennis racket, that boy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Freddie had four extra teeth in his upper jaw that pushed his front incisors forward to result in the overbite.<\/p>\n<p>\nAside from his appearance, Nell, 72, can remember just how determined the young singer was for Queen, who formed in 1970, to make it big in the music business.<\/p>\n<p>\nAlthough Nell always told Freddie to be realistic about how hard it would be to top the charts, words that ultimately meant nothing to the Queen frontman.<\/p>\n<p>\nShe said: &#8220;He was always banging on about his band, trying to get a record deal. I told him, &#8216;Freddie, it\u2019s a harsh world out there, hang on to the day job!'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\nNell landed her breakout role as groupie Columbia in 1975&#8217;s The Rocky Horror Picture Show when she was spotted waitressing in a cafe near Hyde Park, London, by the musical comedy&#8217;s writer Richard O\u2019Brien and director Jim Sharman.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe movie sees a couple, Brad Majors (Barry Bostwick) and Janet Weiss (Susan Sarandon), arrive at &#8220;sweet transvestite, transsexual Transylvanian&#8221; Dr Frank-N-Furter&#8217;s castle, where a party is held, and the mad scientist creates the titular muscle man Rock Horror (Peter Hinwood).<\/p>\n<p>\nTim Curry, 79, played Dr. Frank-N-Furter, whose memorable pouts and struts were styled on legendary Rolling Stones singer Sir Mick Jagger.<\/p>\n<p>\nJagger, 82, famously wanted the role, and he tried to buy the film rights to cast himself, which Nell thinks would have &#8220;killed it&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>\nShe spilled: &#8220;Jim Sharman didn\u2019t want rock stars. He wanted interesting, unusual people with street cred.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\nDisney bought the rights to The Rocky Horror Picture Show in 2019 as part of its acquisition of 20th Century Fox &#8211; the studio that produced and released the cult classic in 1975.<\/p>\n<p>\nNell flashed a boob to the camera as Columbia in the movie, and Disney decided to erase her nipple to make it &#8220;more family-friendly&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>\nShe explained: &#8220;They invited Jim Sharman into the studio to edit it and make it more family-friendly. They didn\u2019t want many changes. But they asked him to erase my nipple! <\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;He told them, &#8216;I have no experience in erasing nipples!&#8217; They took it out anyway. But I can tell you that the fans were not happy. My nipple belonged in that film!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><!-- Pagination --><\/p>\n<p><!-- playbuzz --><br \/>\n<!-- end playbuzz--><\/p>\n<p><!-- \n\n<div data-cn-project=\"femalefirst\">\n    \n<\/div>\n\n --><\/p>\n<p><!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><br \/>\n<!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><\/p>\n<p>    <!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><br \/>\n    <!-- Outbrain { date: 2018\/06\/08 } --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.femalefirst.co.uk\/celebrity\/eat-apple-tennis-racket-nell-campbell-shocked-freddie-mercurys-titanic-teeth-1440545.html?f=rss\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>10 April 2026 The Rocky Horror Show star Nell Campbell was always astonished by her friend Freddie Mercury&#8216;s huge teeth &#8211; joking &#8220;he could eat an apple through a tennis racket&#8221;. The Rocky Horror Picture Show icon Nell Campbell The pair became friends before they both achieved stardom as they both worked stalls that were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":233755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14720,3014,14719,2031,14717,14718,5225,4076,5127],"class_list":{"0":"post-233754","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-make-up","8":"tag-barry-bostwick","9":"tag-freddie-mercury","10":"tag-jim-sharman","11":"tag-mick-jagger","12":"tag-nell-campbell","13":"tag-richard-obrien","14":"tag-roger-taylor","15":"tag-rolling-stones","16":"tag-susan-sarandon"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}