ITV This Morning's Vanessa Feltz fights back tears comparing Paul O'Grady to Nelson Mandela in emotional tribute

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Vanessa Feltz fought back the tears on Wednesday morning as she paid tribute to her "quick-witted" and "clever" friend Paul O'Grady.The star joined Nigel Havers and Scott Mitchell alongside presenters Holly Willoughby and Joel Dommett to commemorate the late comedian's life.Speaking on This Morning, she compared her friend to Nelson Mandela: "He made time for people, he was very very busy and had a lovely partner and about a million animals and all these different shows but somehow he made you feel that he absolutely could focus on you and that's a big deal."That's kind of Nelson Mandela of him."She continued: "He was absolutely hilarious, so quick-witted and so clever.

He was almost incapable of saying anything that wasn't funny."He had to be the absolute master of the put-down, the spontaneous, response to a heckler, falling in his unbelievably uncomfortable stilettos."The tributes continued to pour in, as Holly described the late star as a 'trailblazer'.

She said: "He was a real trailblazer, if you think about the things he was doing, he was doing it first. To be on mainstream TV in drag at that time just wasn't something that was done." The comedian and TV personality shot to fame as foul-mouthed, heavy-smoking Lily Savage in the 1980s - before his rise to fame took him from Camden clubs to the doors of Buckingham Palace.

He then went on to host a string of television and radio programmes, both as a drag act and as himself. The late star was also praised by Barbara Windsor's husband, Scott Mitchell.