Katherine Ryan Says She Was 'Pied' By Stephen Hawking After Trying To Chat Him Up

Katherine Ryan has revealed she was once 'pied off' by Professor Stephen Hawking after attempting to chat him up at a party.

The comedian appeared on Richard Herring's Leicester Square Theatre Podcast where she admitted to trying her luck with the late Professor, but didn't get very far.

Ryan, 38, has shared a number of funny celebrity anecdotes in her new memoir, titled The Audacity, including her unsuccessful attempt at chatting up Hawking, which Herring questioned her about on the podcast.

Ryan replied: "Well, why wouldn't you try? I'd seen the film about him, I know he was a ladies' man, Richard. I was single, you know I have a penchant for the problematic man.

"I saw him at a party and I was chatting him up, of course I was, because he's a genius.

"He was chatting to me, he was really nice, he loves comedy. Then all of a sudden he went a bit quiet, and I was like, 'ok', and his assistant said, 'I'm very sorry, Professor Hawking's tablet has run out of battery so he can't talk to you anymore.'

"I thought, 'I know when I'm being blown off'.

"And he's a genius, so if you had that ability, that's what you would say if you didn't want to talk to overzealous young women at parties."

Yeah, seems fair enough.

But Ryan decided she needed to know for sure, so she did a bit of research into the device Hawking used to speak.

She added: "I needed to make sure I was being pied. I saw him speaking to someone else, and I was like, hang on. Then I went on this real deep dive on how the power wheelchair works - there's a back-up battery in the chair for the tablet.

"Bulls**t. But I only respected him more. I loved being blown off by Stephen Hawking, that was cool. How many people can say they tried to f*** Stephen Hawking?"

Fortunately, her love life has since improved - with Ryan entering a civil partnership with her childhood sweetheart Bobby Kootstra in 2019.

The pair rekindled their romance when she travelled to her native Canada while filming an episode of Who Do You Think You Are?Featured Image Credit: Alamy

Topics: Celebrity, Stephen Hawking

Claire Reid

Claire is a journalist at LADbible who, after dossing around for a few years, went to Liverpool John Moores University. She graduated with a degree in Journalism and a whole load of debt. When not writing words in exchange for money she is usually at home watching serial killer documentaries surrounded by cats. You can contact Claire at [email protected]

@ClaireReid19