Ink-necked Sharleen Spiteri lookalike James Arthur is considering dropping the ‘James’ from his name, leaving him with just ‘Arthur’.
Arthur is (semi-seriously) thinking of making the change because his old name, James Arthur, is forever associating with eating pizza in just your socks and texting people homophobic things and doing a really crap version of Stan on a mixtape about whales, while the name ‘Arthur’ is just associated with a cartoon anthromorphic aardvark from a semi-popular ‘90s cartoon for children. Fresh start and all that.
Arthur tweeted the idea today, saying: “How would the fans feel if the next record was released under the name ‘Arthur’ and james was dropped going forward as I'm a new character?” Bit optimistic that there’s going to be a ‘next record’, isn’t it? Come on, mate. You’ve been dropped. You’re essentially a busker with a robust Twitter following.
“Id like to start over,” he added.
And before his fans got confused – and, as naturally follows, angry – Arthur clarified that ‘James’ would still be the name he uses day-to-day, it’s just ‘Arthur’ would be his stage name. Like Madonna. Or Prince. Or Rylan.
“This will be my artist name and stage name,” he said. “Of course you guys know I'm james in real life.” So, wait: what name would he make 17-year-old fans whisper to him while he did sex acts to and around them? ‘James’ or ‘Arthur’?
James Arthur says the decision lies with his fans, so whatever that particular brain trust comes up with will be his new stage name. But please, Jarthur, we’re begging you to reconsider. You were born with the gift of two first names instead of a real surname. Don’t throw that away over this.