Not long ago a photo of a very poised Dame Helen Mirren riding the subway circulated around the internet, her elegance beaming so that it totally distracted from the manspreading happening right next to her. She did notice the manspreading, however. She told Jimmy Fallon last night:
"This guy sitting next to me is great... he's doing the classic manspreading thing. But you know guys do do that, don't they? They've always done it, it's just now they're being called on it. When I wear trousers I deliberately sit like that, just to say I can do it to. But it is annoying on airplanes and trains... it's like, get out of my space!"
We now have a suggestion for the MTA on an etiquette campaign redesign:
(Original photo via jasonlowenyc)
We were going to elect her as the city's subway etiquette ambassador, but then Mirren went on to admitting some pretty awful subway behavior herself. This actually may be the worst thing we've ever heard of one human being do to another human being who was just trying to help. Does her damehood get revoked for this?
"I did this awful thing on the subway, and I'm embarrassed and ashamed about it... and I so want to find the guy. If you're out there, just know I am so sorry. I am going to go to my death bed feeling bad about this. This is exactly what happened... I was with some friends and we were running to get the subway to go to the theater. We're running, and the train has just come in... I get ahead of them and I stop the door, and my hand is sort of stuck in the door, and this very nice guy gets up and opens the doors, so we can get on the train. And now we're waiting for the train to go and it's not going... the subway police arrive and say, 'Someone stopped the train, who stopped the train?' And I go, 'Not me.' The guy said, 'I did, I stopped it,' and they take him off the train."
Check out the full clip below, where Mirren goes on to explain she simply couldn't be late for the theatre.
