Nina Simone, London, 1981

There was a party for Liberace at Wedgie's, which was quite an upper-class nightclub on the Kings Road in Chelsea. And the photographers were leaving as I arrived, as I'm usually late anyway. And I said, ‘Is there anybody in there?’ And they said, ‘Nah, not really, just Liberace.’ And one of them piped up and said, ‘Oh, Nina Simone's in there.’ I thought what? Nina Simone, my idol, my God I've got to get in there. So, I went in, found Nina. She was sitting at a table and I asked her if I could do a Polaroid of her. And we took a Polaroid, she looked at, it said, ‘Nup, I don't like it.’ She stuck it in the candle and burnt it, held it up, looking like the Statue of Liberty, holding this flaming Polaroid. We proceeded to do about five or six after that, until she finally liked the one you're looking at. Then she said to me, ‘Sit down and talk to me.’ We had copious amounts of champagne and talked about God knows what.