Paul Heaton is the last ever recipient of the Q Award.
Paul Heaton with his Q Award
The music magazine, Q, was forced to cease printing in July due to the coronavirus pandemic, with plans for their annual award show to take place next week. And whilst there will now be no award show, the magazine's former editor Ted Kessler has confirmed the Beautiful South star will be honoured.
Explaining their decision, Ted wrote on Twitter: "We had the Roundhouse booked for two nights for the Q Awards next week. We didn’t have talent sorted when we had to Covid cancel in April, but Nadine Shah was presenting and the two gigs were Liam Gallagher one night, Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott the other. The only award we knew for sure was to Paul Heaton, as we’d heard he’d never won one. Think of all the brilliant songs he’s written for The Housemartins, Beautiful South etc. Millions of records sold. No Q award (or Brit) for his songwriting. So we knew he’d be Classic Songwriter. Then, a few days after Q closed, we got a message from him saying that to thank Q for all the support we’d given him over 35 years, he was going to donate a large sum to thank us in our turmoil.
"Obviously, I politely declined. He was insistent. I accepted the donation and shared it amongst over 40 staff and freelancers working for Q at the time, all of whose minds - like mine - were blown. It really was the most amazingly kind, selfless, generous act. For some, it meant a bill could be paid. We got him that award in the end. Britain’s greatest living pop star. A true legend. (sic)"
And Paul took to Twitter to thank Q for handing him the award.
He said in a video message: "Thank you very much for my award. You didn't have to do that, it's ever so kind of you ...
"It was just meant as I said in an email to make sure people weren't left on their a**. Thank you again and it looks good up there. All the best."