“I’ve had a blessed life. I’ve pulled back from trying to control my destiny and gone back to accepting whatever fate has in store for me. I live for today because I don’t know what’ll happen tomorrow.”
― Cilla Black
“It’s hard to watch your life unfold, and sad. Life changes.”
― Cilla Black
“I remember one day my son, our Robert, was looking at me on the settee and looking at me on the television, and then all of a sudden he said: ‘Why don’t you bring that pretty mummy home with you?’ And I thought: ‘Oh dear, I’m going to have to dress up at home now as well!’”
― Cilla Black
“It’s no fun getting older. I might be wearing beautiful diamond earrings, but they can’t take away the pain of losing my hearing.”
― Cilla Black
“I cannot do business. I cannot sit and say, ‘How are you, the weather’s great, how’s your golf?’ I’m like a bull in a china shop.”
― Cilla Black
“The best advice he gave me was to carry on. It would have been difficult to set foot back inside a TV studio if I hadn’t carried on – I don’t know if I would have ever gone back in.”
― Cilla Black
“I’ve got a bike in the lounge that I watch Coronation Street on. I never had to watch my weight until I had the children, but with the bike, I’m fine.”
― Cilla Black
“It’s true what they say: ‘You don’t appreciate what you’ve got until it’s gone.’ I miss love. I miss being looked after.”
― Cilla Black
“I’ve had days when I go in my bedroom for 24 hours at a time. I call them my Cilla Black days, and they’re literally black days. It’s like the old Boomtown Rats song ‘I Don’t Like Mondays.’ You just want to shut the whole day down.”
― Cilla Black
“The first time I went to Abbey Road and put those headphones on, I discovered I had two voices. I no longer had to shout in the studio, but I can’t knock the Cavern or the other clubs because they gave me my strong voice.”
― Cilla Black
“Nothing is a career move. Everything I’ve done this year has so not been a career move.”
― Cilla Black
“My idea of baking is buying a ready-make cake mix and throwing in an egg.”
― Cilla Black
“If I can’t eat the meal in a restaurant, and the waiter asks, ‘Is everything all right, Madam?’, I tell them that I’m on a diet.”
― Cilla Black
“I humbly apologise for reality Television.”
― Cilla Black
“Well it has been very exciting and very changing as well. Celebrating the 40th year and having the album out and the Channel 4 documentary and I resigned from Blind Date.”
― Cilla Black
“I had to do the book because there was an unauthorised biography which didn’t tell it like it was.”
― Cilla Black
“But reality television is here to stay.”
― Cilla Black
“I never did acid, I am just so high anyway.”
― Cilla Black
“I did smoke a joint once but I did not enjoy it.”
― Cilla Black
“The difference with me is that I did inhale.”
― Cilla Black
“It was an unknown thing, a lot of people had very bad trips and I like to be in control.”
― Cilla Black
“The nicest thing about coming of age is that I can do whatever I like.”
― Cilla Black
“I don’t want to see older people on T.V. I want to see young, pretty people on T.V.”
― Cilla Black
“’Blind Date’ was based on an Australian show called ‘Perfect Match’, which I first saw when I was on tour there. And I couldn’t understand why it wasn’t on British T.V.”
― Cilla Black
“I never thought I’d be on T.V. For me as a kid in Liverpool, it was a more realistic option to be a singer.”
― Cilla Black
“I tried never to take anything for granted.”
― Cilla Black
“I can do the PR thing until the cows come home. That’s my nature. I never want to upset anybody.”
― Cilla Black
“I give 150%. I’m a professional, a pro.”
― Cilla Black
“I’m apolitical. Where all that Conservative business came along from, I don’t know.”
― Cilla Black
“I like being in charge of the remote control.”
― Cilla Black
“When I was put up in posh hotels, I thought it was wonderful.”
― Cilla Black
“If I’m in a rotten mood, I stay in and watch television.”
― Cilla Black
“I knew I could do anything I wanted to do and go anywhere I wanted to go and not have to worry if I could afford it.”
― Cilla Black
“I don’t want to see a 70-year-old on television.”
― Cilla Black
“When people ask me do I believe in feminism – well, I didn’t even know I was a feminist. I was the top of the bill; I’ve always been the top of the bill. So I don’t know what equality is.”
― Cilla Black
“I don’t like the selfie because it’s too close. There ain’t no people with arms long enough to do a selfie of me.”
― Cilla Black
“I always wanted to be a star.”
― Cilla Black
“I was so ordinary, critics couldn’t understand it, but looking back, that was the reason for my success. What you see is what you get. People thought, ‘I could do that.’”
― Cilla Black
“I can’t say I’m surprised I was successful. I was determined – and I got it.”
― Cilla Black
“I loved everything about show business, meeting the stars, the whole ambience. I was living every young kid’s dream. I was told a pop singer’s life was three years, but I was still making money seven years later.”
― Cilla Black
“Turning 70 was a real shock. I thought, ‘I’m on the last lap now.’”
― Cilla Black
“I never liked miming.”
― Cilla Black
“Really, I’m trying to retire. It’s just nobody will let me!”
― Cilla Black
“After Fergie and Prince Andrew honeymooned at Le Touessrok in Mauritius, Bobby, my late husband, and I were first to stay in their suite. We enjoyed the benefits – all the spoils and the special luxuries. We practically had our own private beach, and it was most romantic.”
― Cilla Black
“I rarely stay in hotels because I have friends all over the world.”
― Cilla Black
“I love books and the latest autobiographies. I’m a Gemini and love being with people, but then again, I love my own company, which is when I read most.”
― Cilla Black
“I always believed I would be a star.”
― Cilla Black
“It’s a business, and I’m a product. Terrible, isn’t it?”
― Cilla Black
“It is when I am on stage that I feel most comfortable. It is my home. It is the only thing I have known since I was a kid.”
― Cilla Black
“I’m a ‘never say never’ girl. Frank Sinatra retired four times. He kept coming back. But there are people in our business who want to die on stage. Literally. I don’t want to do that.”
― Cilla Black
“Its rock n’ roll that has done my hearing in.”
― Cilla Black
“I helped make the Sixties swing, and I’m very proud of that.”
― Cilla Black
“In the Sixties, you needed talent to make it.”
― Cilla Black
“Anything which interferes with my social life is a no-no.”
― Cilla Black
“I wouldn’t mind being a talent show judge if it didn’t run for too long.”
― Cilla Black
“Who wouldn’t fancy Brian Epstein? He was tall and handsome and had money and class.”
― Cilla Black
“I intend to grow old very disgracefully.”
― Cilla Black
“I’m quite subdued, believe it or not. I switch it on for the camera.”
― Cilla Black
“You couldn’t give me any more confidence than when I was on T.V. because I was in control, but I wasn’t in control in my private life.”
― Cilla Black
“I love cookery programmes.”
― Cilla Black
“I’m very quiet off stage.”
― Cilla Black
“There’s nothing going into my mouth that’s not wrapped.”
― Cilla Black
“Back when I was helping put the swing into the swinging ’60s, I used to hang out with Cathy McGowan. We’d be doing ‘Ready Steady Go!’ on T.V., and Biba used to make our dresses. We’d be in the flat in Cromwell Road on Friday night, just before the live show, and they’d still be sewing.”
― Cilla Black
“I am falling apart. My hand is falling apart. I can’t shake hands. I had arthritis, and I had an operation for it.”
― Cilla Black
“You see on ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ and ‘X Factor,’ they all wear ear plugs. But I could not hear myself when I wore them. So that is where the strong voice came from.”
― Cilla Black
“I don’t see why I should be a dame for just doing what I always wanted to do.”
― Cilla Black
“I just thank God when I wake up every day.”
― Cilla Black
“’Blind Date’ was my lifeline. It was 90 minutes when I could forget about everything, forget about the world.”
― Cilla Black
“I don’t want to be a burden on anybody.”
― Cilla Black
“There’s a whole generation out there who don’t know that I was a pop singer in the early days.”
― Cilla Black
“I’ve got lots of great friends in show business, and that’s all they are. Great friends. I’ll never marry again – what’s the point? I had the best. I’ve got friends all over the world, and that’s enough for me.”
― Cilla Black
“I’m a Roman Catholic. Or was. I was brought up that way and used to say my prayers every night, but I don’t pray to God any more. I might use the usual phrases I picked up from my parents, ‘Oh, if God spares me next year…’ or ‘Please God…’ but they’re only phrases.”
― Cilla Black
“Having a biopic made is very flattering.”
― Cilla Black
“T.V. found me. I was offered jobs. It came in handy when I started having babies. Just one night’s work, and then I could go home. I loved ‘Surprise Surprise’, but it was hard work. ‘Blind Date’ was a doddle by comparison.”
― Cilla Black
“On my gravestone, I want ‘Here lies the singer,’ not ‘Here lies the T.V. presenter’.”
― Cilla Black
“I would have loved to have cracked America. When I tried, I got homesick. Then, when I was in New York, my nanna died, and I just wanted to come home.”
― Cilla Black
“I was reading about an age pill that has been developed which they claim will make you live longer. That is not for me.”
― Cilla Black
“I don’t want to live beyond the age of 75. That would be a good point to bow out. I don’t want to go on for ever.”
― Cilla Black
“When I go out, it’s to have a good time, not to find a man.”
― Cilla Black
Leave a Reply