Harry Styles lost his virginity to Radiohead

Yesterday, Harry Styles inducted Thom Yorke into the Fellowship of the Ivors Academy at the 2026 Ivor Novello Awards. The usual pleasantries were exchanged: Styles told Yorke he was an inspiration, an iconoclast, a Platonic ideal of artistry. And then he admitted something else, something even the unflappable Thom Yorke didn’t see coming. “Thom’s work is music that is felt,” Styles noted. “I always felt I could uniquely understand the writer of these songs, and at last someone was capturing what it feels like at times to be human… I lost my virginity to the intro of ‘Talk Show Host.’” 

Yes, you read that right: Harry Styles alleges to have first gotten it on to the spooky, triphop-inflected cut from Radiohead’s 1995 Street Spirit (Fade Out) EP. Not only is this a Radiohead deep cut, but it is also a song no one would ever really think to have sex to. Its themes are nihilistic, bordering on suicidal; also, I don’t remember its intro being that long. For scientific reasons, I listened to “Talk Show Host” and imagined losing my virginity to it. Results were subpar. Here were some issues I encountered. First, I was right: the intro of “Talk Show Host” is 11 seconds long. First times are anxiety-inducing, but 11 seconds is parodic. Maybe he means the first verse? And another thing: the song’s first lyric is, “I want to be someone else or I’ll explode,” which is weirdly psychosexual, invoking self-hatred and violent death. Now, I would not recommend having sex to Radiohead. But if I were to do so, you’d have to go with “House of Cards,” right? I could even see a sadomasochistic argument for “Let Down” or “Fake Plastic Trees.” But “Talk Show Host” has to be up there with, like, “True Love Waits” for all-time creepiest Radiohead songs to have sex to. Someone has to tell Harry Styles about Marvin Gaye before it’s too late.

Yorke, for his part, used his time on stage to rail against music executives who refuse to invest in up-and-coming artists in favor of established names, stating, “This industry will die and arseholes with it, if all you do is devalue the next generation of artists and their fans. Just remember: Without us, you ain’t shit!” before dedicating his award to the next generation of musicians. Personally, I’d like to dedicate this article to the unsung hero who was Harry Styles’ first sexual partner. Wherever you are, I hope you’re bumping uglies to better music now.

Keep scrolling for more great stories.