She really can’t live this one down.
It’s been over 20 years since Nadine Coyle famously lied about her age on Popstars, but passport jokes seem to still follow her at every turn.
The Derry singer was just 16 when she made it to the pop reality show, but was forced to leave when she got caught up in a lie about her date of birth.
When asked to produce proof of age, Nadine pretended she left it at home and asked her mum to send it in the post.
Of course, this never happened, and when the cameras stopped rolling, the pop star came clean.
Nadine’s elimination from Popstars turned out to be a blessing in disguise. She was later cast in one of the biggest girl groups of all times, Girls Aloud, and is still performing as a solo artist today.
Having said that, passport jokes still abound. Irish comedian Michael Fry, for instance, recently turned the TV moment into an Indie pop hit. And each year, pop culture stars recognise Nadine’s birthday – fifteenth of the sixth, famously – as Passport Day.
In fact, the singer herself recently shared that a fan threw their passport at her while she was performing on stage.
In an interview with Metro.co.uk, Nadine said: “I did a show in Belfast last week, and you know the way people throw stuff on stage, I’ve been thrown an actual passport!”
She continued: “Their actual passport! And you’re looking at it going ‘This is someone’s actual passport.’ Not a pretend one, not one they’ve made for the night.
“But they thought it was a good idea, in that moment, to hand their real passport to me on stage.
“I just thought, ‘You might need this.'”
Nadine will return to Irish screens later this evening for RTÉ One’s competition show The Last Singer Standing.
