Frank Skinner was perplexed when he received his MBE after getting a strange email that led him to believe it was ‘gossip’.
In the 2023 New Year Honours list, the comedian, 66, was named a Member of the Order of the British Empire.
And, as fancy as it may seem, the manner he learned the news was really mundane.
Frank said on Wednesday’s Good Morning Britain with Susanna Reid and Ed Balls that it was simply delivered by email.
He said: ‘I got an email and it said there is a letter attached to this email which has got important news about the New Year’s Honours list.’
Meanwhile, Susanna was surprised to see that the ‘elaborate’ letter was not written in calligraphy.
Frank went on: ‘I thought, “does that mean I’ve got one or is it just gossip?”
‘Is it going to say, “Brian May’s been knighted, you didn’t hear it from me,” which is not as exciting.’
To get the letter, he joked that he had to pass a security check to ensure he wasn’t a robot.
In other news, the actor recounted an episode with the late Queen after she scolded him.
Ed began: ‘We were about to go back on stage, the Queen and I were having a chat, Frank was off somewhere chatting with the producers, and I said, “we need Frank to come on.”‘
At that point, the Queen turned round to Frank and shouted: ‘Come on Frank, hurry up Frank!
Frank recalled: ‘I thought, it was the Queen shouting at me!’
‘I’ve never seen anyone move so fast as you move,’ Ed quipped.
‘I had the image of the tower in my mind,’ Frank joked.
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays from 6am on ITV1.