Ant and Dec’s wild fans – X-rated requests, lipstick numbers and stolen boxers

Ant and Dec once sent teenage girl so wild that they were bombarded with X-rated requests, had phone numbers written in lipstick all over their car and had to fend off thieves desperate to pinch their boxer shorts.

Back when they were better known as rapping duo PJ and Duncan, the Geordie besties had some seriously wild fan behaviour to put up with.

The Let’s Get Ready To Rhumble hitmakers were a huge hit with screaming teenage girls all over the country, and it seems they couldn’t even escape the attention in their own family homes.

In their first joint autobiography Ooh! What A Lovely Pair, Ant and Dec looked back on their days as one of the UK’s biggest boyband, or boy duos, if you will.

Ant, who joked he often wore caps to cover up his big forehead – and to look like an edgy rapper – said girls would often snatch them right off his head, giving them a piece of instant memorabilia.

But that wasn’t the only piece of clothing he had stolen.

After the boys had released a couple of singles, they were seriously hot property, and all their local fans managed to figure out where they lived and would spend all day hanging around outside their homes.

And that was particularly dangerous when his mum was doing the washing.

He wrote: “Walking into the kitchen, where most of the washing was drying, I suddenly saw this hand shoot in through the open window and grab a pair of my boxer shorts.

“My immediate reaction was ‘That’s burglary, I should call 999’, then I began to imagine the scene if the police were called out to investigate The Great Boxer-short Mystery of ’94 and decided there was probably no point calling them.

“I always assumed it was one of the female fans whodunnit. She might even have been one of the girls who’d thrown bras and knickers at us on stage, but if she was trying to start some sort of underwear-exchange system, this wasn’t the way to go about it.”

Dec’s problem wasn’t so much people turning up, it was the constant phone calls thanks to the fact his mum and dad were listed in the phone book.

He penned: “Fans would find the number, then ring the house and ask to speak to me. You’d think that sort of thing could be slightly irritating, but you’d be wrong. It was infuriating.

“I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that, on Christmas Day 1994, the phone rang solidly for fourteen hours. We got through the presents, breakfast, Christmas dinner and the Queen’s Speech, all to the sound of the phone ringing.”

Ant and Dec got plenty of gifts from their fans too.

After being asked in a magazine interview what their favourite sweets were, Dec said chocolate buttons and Ant said Smarties.

Ant later came to regret his answer when tubes of Smarties were thrown at his face every time he got on stage.

They ate them all though.

That wasn’t the only thing thrown at them on stage, with fans regularly chucking underwear up at their idols.

Dec laughed: “We’d also get underwear thrown at us on stage, and Ant regularly had bra-related accidents – but part of the reason is because he is particularly clumsy. He once slipped on a banana skin. Really. I thought that only ever happened in cartoons, but he genuinely did it.”

The lads were regularly showered with gifts of teddy bears and red roses, which they’d take round to the local hospitals to donate.

And of course, they’d be bombarded with cards and presents every Valentine’s Day.

The boys were sometimes left unsettled by the X-rated requests their fans would make via banners held up at their gigs.

Ant penned: “We’d be up there mid-song, and we’d be looking out over a sea of banners that said things like, ‘Point your erection in my direction’. Considering the age of most of our fans, you wouldn’t point your finger in their direction, never mind anything else.

“There was also a lot of fainting going on, and we saw a pattern emerge: girl faints during show, girl gets carried backstage by sweaty security guard, girl gets polo mint from St John ambulanceman and misses show. It became as much a part of our performance as the dance break in ‘Rhumble’.”

Ant and Dec’s Toyota Previa – nicknamed The Prev – which they drove from gig to gig ended up becoming a sort of mobile little black book.

The lads said that every time they came back to the car, they’d find it covered in phone numbers written in lipstick.

Their driver would clean them off, but soon gave up the pointless task.

“That car wore more make-up than Lily Savage,” Ant joked.

PJ and Duncan’s besotted teenage fans even meant that they had to pretend to be single.

Dec had been dating Grange Hill star Clare Buckfield for two years, but had been told to keep quiet about it during interviews.

One fan was so enamoured by Dec that she legally changed her name by deed poll to Declan Donnelly.

The Valentine’s cards that came addressed “To Declan Donnelly from Declan Donnelly” provided Ant with many hours of entertainment.