Orthodox Pop Star Giggles About the Internet

Alex Clare Image by youtube
He may have got the world hooked on the latest web browser, but don’t go to Alex Clare for website recommendations.
The hit British-Jewish recording artist and one-time boyfriend of Amy Winehouse provided the music for commercials for the latest Internet Explorer with his song Too Close. But asked about his taste in websites by the British television show Freshly Squeezed all he really managed to come up with us Sporting Fish. “There’s a diary of angler on there which is fascinating, it’s very good… he takes photos of the fish he caught,” Clare enthuses.
In fact, that was pretty much the only coherent thing that Clare managed to say during the interview, as he spent most of it giggling uncontrollably. Admittedly the host was partly to blame for sitting on his knee to test whether he was, to borrow his song title, “too close.”
If angling websites don’t seem to fit the pop star lifestyle, it tallies with the fact that Clare is far from a typical celeb. He’s an Orthodox Jew who says that a trick he uses faced with adoring female fans is “just run away as quickly as possible,” has Sabra hummus as the most demanding request on his rider, and refuses to play concerts on Sabbaths and festivals.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
- 2
Culture Cardinals are Catholic, not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
- 3
Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
- 4
Music After decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Trump administration condemns destructive pro-Palestinian protest at University of Washington
-
Opinion 80 years after Germany surrendered, we’re still learning the real lessons of World War II
-
News How a Holocaust denier turned antisemitism into a cryptocoin
-
Fast Forward Government reviewing visas of pro-Palestinian protesters who occupied Columbia library, after about 75 arrests
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.