In a remarkably frank interview in the new issue of HP, British PR guru Max Clifford talks to Olaf Tyaransen about selling the records he got for his newspaper column, the fees he charges, death threats he’s received, and the time an EMI Records man told him not to waste his time on The Beatles...

Clifford began his career as a journalist and print has always been his métier. Asked if he is worried about the impact of social media and of Twitter in particular, Clifford is dismissive. “Twitter,” he says, “doesn’t have anything like the impact of a front-page of the Mail or the Sun or the News Of The World. And because they get it wrong so often, it doesn’t have the same credibility (as a newspaper).”

In relation to Imogen Thomas, he insists that, “if Ryan Giggs had listened to the advice that I gave Imogen to give to him, nobody would have known about the affair.”

Clifford also reveals why the News Of The World tapped his phone. “I worked all the time with the News Of The World for about 30 years, but I fell out with Andy Coulson and I stopped working with them. And of course, a lot of their big stories came from me, so I was an obvious target for them.” He also admits he’s had “plenty of death threats”.

Regarding the music column he wrote in the fifties, Clifford admits “We used to get free records sent to us from the record companies and review them. And I had a pal I used to give them to, and he’d sell them and we’d split the profits.”

When he was about 19, Clifford handled the launch of The Beatles. He recalls the marketing director of EMI telling him, “Don’t waste your time on this lot, son, they’ve got no chance.”
The rest is history.

Read the full interview with Clifford in the new issue of Hot Press, (Paolo Nutini cover) out now!