@VanTwee: OMG I just saw your Clinton/gloryhole story and I have to beg: please, please, please tell me the Battle/'Normous story.

Sorry, just noticed that I had a message!

OK, so when Kathleen and Jesse were touring in their recital of gospel music, supposedly after their first performance in London, everyone gathered to wait for the reviews. When the first paper came out, Kathleen took it upon herself to read the review, a complete rave, to the assembled group. Midway through, she got to a section about the "almost unworldly high notes of the great black American soprano Kathleen Battle." Furious, she threw the paper away from her, screaming "Why do they always have to say that? Why can't they just call me a great American soprano?" And she stormed out of the room.

Everyone sat there in awkward silence for a moment, until Jesse reared herself up in her seat, shrugged, and announced, "Well...somebody had to tell her."

See? Apocryphal or not, it just has to be repeated.