Harry Styles Reveals Radiohead Detail While Honoring Thom Yorke
Harry Styles brought radiohead into the center of the 2026 Ivor Novello Awards on Thursday, May 21st, when he inducted Thom Yorke into the Fellowship of the Ivors Academy. In the same speech, he said he lost his virginity to the intro of “Talk Show Host,” turning a formal honors moment into one of the night’s most widely discussed remarks.
Styles on Yorke
Styles used the stage to frame Yorke as more than a favorite artist. “Thom’s work is music that is felt,” he said, adding that Yorke’s work has shaped his belief in the purpose of the arts in the world today. He also drew a direct line from Radiohead to his own catalog, saying that without “Exit Music (For a Film),” there would be no “Watermelon Sugar.”
The remark that will travel fastest is the most personal one: “I lost my virginity to the intro of 'Talk Show Host,'” Styles said while inducting Yorke. For an awards show built around songwriting and influence, that detail pulled the ceremony toward autobiography and gave the Ivors a moment that will outlast the standard acceptance-cycle chatter.
Rome, then the Ivors
Styles also described the first time he met Yorke, saying he ran into him while walking in the street in Rome. He told a friend the night before that maybe it was better if the two never crossed paths, then found himself on a quiet cobbled street with A Moon Shaped Pool playing in his headphones.
“I’d always been worried that he might be mean to me, and that emotionally I would never recover,” Styles said. He recalled opening with, “Hello, Mr. Yorke,” and Yorke answering, “Oh, it’s you. Hello,” before adding, “I beamed, and I’ve been beaming ever since.”
Yorke’s 35 years
The tribute landed against the scale of Yorke’s career, with Radiohead’s debut album Pablo Honey released the year before Styles was born and Yorke now having spent almost 35 years releasing music. That length of run is what made the Ivors induction feel less like a cameo and more like a handoff between generations of writers.
Yorke then pushed the night back toward the industry itself, delivering a fiery speech that asked music executives to invest in new artists. He also debuted a reportedly new song titled “Space Walk” and performed an acoustic version of Radiohead’s “Jigsaw Falling into Place,” while Styles had stepped away from his “Together, Together” residency tour for the appearance and was set to resume the Amsterdam stop that night. The speech gave the ceremony a business edge as much as a personal one: honor the legacy, but keep the pipeline of new music alive.
