Oasis star Noel Gallagher once took cocaine in a toilet reserved for the Queen in Downing Street.
Noel Gallagher's Royal Toilet Confession at Downing Street
In 2005, Noel Gallagher found himself at 10 Downing Street for a music industry reception. The Oasis guitarist wasn't there to discuss policy—he was there to party. And when nature called, he discovered something extraordinary: a loo reserved exclusively for Queen Elizabeth II.
What happened next became one of rock and roll's most audacious restroom stories.
The Royal Powder Room Incident
Gallagher openly admitted in interviews that he used the Queen's private toilet to do a line of cocaine. "I went into the bogs, had a line, came out, and I was chatting to this fella," he recalled. The toilet's gilded fixtures and royal designation didn't deter him—if anything, they made the moment more appealing to a working-class kid from Manchester who'd crashed the establishment's party.
The irony wasn't lost on Gallagher himself. Here was a man who'd built his career on anti-establishment anthems, literally snorting drugs in a bathroom meant for the monarchy.
Why Was He Even There?
Tony Blair's government had cultivated relationships with Britain's cultural icons during the Cool Britannia era. Musicians, artists, and celebrities regularly attended Downing Street receptions. Oasis, despite their notorious bad behavior, were considered British cultural ambassadors—at least officially.
The band had famously been invited to meet Blair in 1997, though they later claimed to regret the photo op. By 2005, Gallagher was attending these events solo, and his behavior suggested he'd long stopped caring about political optics.
The Aftermath
Did anyone catch him? Not officially. Gallagher confessed years later with characteristic swagger, seemingly unbothered by potential consequences. By then, the statute of limitations had likely passed, and he was far from active politics.
The story joined the Gallagher brothers' extensive catalogue of outrageous behavior:
- Starting a mid-flight brawl that forced their plane to make an emergency landing
- Getting banned from a Hong Kong hotel after Liam threw a pot plant through a window
- Noel quitting the band multiple times before a final 2009 split
A Very British Scandal
What makes this story peculiarly British is the collision of class, monarchy, and rock music. The Queen's toilet—a symbol of hereditary privilege—desecrated by a Manchester council estate kid who'd made millions singing about cigarettes and alcohol. It's almost Shakespearean in its symbolism.
Gallagher never expressed remorse. Why would he? For someone who titled songs "Don't Look Back in Anger" and sang about living forever, a line in the Queen's loo was just another Tuesday. The establishment had invited the fox into the henhouse and seemed surprised when he acted like a fox.
The palace, predictably, never commented. Royal protocol doesn't allow for acknowledging such vulgarities, even when they're brazenly true. And Downing Street? They probably checked the bathroom more carefully at future events.
Whether you find it hilarious or horrifying says more about you than Gallagher. But there's no denying it happened—and in the pantheon of rock and roll excess, doing coke in the Queen's toilet at the Prime Minister's residence is genuinely one for the history books.