Blur's Alex James kicked out of church over Christmas for stubbing cigarette on baby Jesus

Blur bassist Alex James confessed he broke the “antique figurine of the naked baby Jesus” when he put out his fag on it, and he attempted to fix it before getting booted out

Blur bassist Alex got booted from church last Christmas(Image: Getty Images)

Hellraiser Alex James has revealed how he got kicked out of church over Christmas for stubbing out a fag on a naked baby Jesus.

The Blur bassist was booted from the holy house after he put his cigarette on the “antique figurine of the naked baby Jesus”. The 56-year-old music legend recalled the incident which happened last year.

He said: “I had been smoking in the room with the art and the objects, as usual. Someone I didn’t know had said, ‘I’m not sure if you’re allowed to smoke in here’.

“I’d dutifully picked up a little ashtray on the sideboard where I was leaning and extinguished my cigarette. Sadly, unlike some staterooms, not everything in this one was actually an ashtray.

The rocker stubbed his cigarette out on the baby Jesus figurine(Image: Dave Benett/Getty Images)

“I’d happened upon an antique figurine of the naked baby Jesus and stubbed my fag-end out by rubbing it around in his crotch, quite obliviously.”

Not only did he stub the fag out on the poor Jesus, he also broke the figurine and struggled to put it all back together. And he said he tried to make a joke out of it with one of the less than impressed churchgoers.

“I tried to put a positive spin on it,” he laughed. “I even picked baby Jesus back up to demonstrate his robustness by tugging one of his little arms. The arm came off along with a plume of impossibly fine, glittering, powdery dust.

Blur in 1991(Image: Getty Images)

“I managed to wedge it back on.” James has since swapped out his wild party days – to look after animals on his farm in the Cotswolds in South West England with his large family.

The Parklife hitmaker lives with wife and mum to his five strong brood, Claire Neates - after binning the booze for good in 2002. “You get home after a tour otherwise,” he admitted, “You get home and you have to wash up and the kids are like, ‘Dad, stop being a [redacted].’”

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