A COME Dine With Me contestant who went viral after appearing on the show 13 years ago has revealed how much money he has made from the iconic moment.
Kev Riley, a wedding DJ from Lancashire, became instantly recognisable after shoving a whole hand whisk into his mouth whilst preparing a dessert on the popular Channel4 cooking show.
It was a completely unplanned moment from Kev, who just decided to slurp the entire whisk after making a cheesecake on the show.
But after the show aired, he instantly became known as ‘whisk guy’ and is now constantly recognised in the street thanks to a meme, which went viral on social media.
However, though his antics were spotted far and wide and he became one of the most notable contestants of the cooking show, Kev revealed that he hasn’t made any money from his infamy.
He told FUBAR Radio: “I haven’t made money from this. If I had, maybe I’d have been a millionaire. But it’s just about the laugh. It’s been great fun. I have always had a quirky personality.”
Thinking back to the filming, the 44-year-old said: “A mate had put my name forward as a laugh. It was all an accident really. It all went from there. I did not practice or prepare and I actually came last.”
Discussing his bizarre fame, he said: “It is quite mad really. I am recognised everywhere I go. I can’t just mind my own business. Social media and Tiktok in particular has made it incredible.
“It is like being a full-time celebrity.”
In his home town of Burnley, Kev is stopped on an almost daily basis but his fame extends far beyond the county borders.
He was recently spotted by some Greek waiters in Corfu, who started cheering at him when they recognised who he was. While last summer Kev’s face was even blown up and put on a flag seen at Glastonbury during a performance by Coldplay.
However not all the attention he’s received has been good, after he was randomly punched in the face while he was with his wife, after another man recognised who he was.
He said: “It was awful really. I was with my wife and we were just having a nice evening. It’s a real shame.”
Kev previously said that the completely unplanned moment on the show happened just because he was trying to make the producer laugh.
He told the Curious Cast podcast back in 2021: “I knew at the time that I did it – because they all absolutely wet themselves laughing – I thought, ‘That’s definitely gonna be in the show’.”
“And then when it was on, it wasn’t something that everyone was talking about, but it was a couple of years later, the first time it got shared, and then a couple of years after that, and then it seems like it never dies.
“It’s a strange thing – just when I think it’s done now, I don’t think anyone’s shared it for a bit, then all of a sudden Lindt the chocolate company will have shared it, or Lee Evans shared it once, then there’s some bloke that goes in the Capitol building in Washington that looks like me.
“It seems whatever the news is at the time, it gets applied to that and re-shared.”
