A Barry Manilow superfan has told GB News how he was banned from meeting his idol after being told by an assistant that a wig and a colourful jacket he was wearing were “insulting” to the star.

Wayne Denton, who performs in a show called Celebrating Barry, told Martin Daubney: “I’ve never met him before, so we wanted to make it special and have a meet and greet. We saw the show first, fantastic show, one of his best performances I think, even though he’s had his illnesses.

“He really did perform, and we were really pleased with that to see him. We sat right in the front, front two shows, which was included in the price of the meet and greet ticket. So we were there with the other people that are going to meet and greet, and we’re all sort of excited and enjoying the show.

“And afterwards, we had to go to an area where we had to go into a room, and we were checked into this room as we went through, and this guy we’ve met a couple of times was there. He was in charge of the VIP tickets.

“He turned around and he said, ‘You can’t come in, not like that’, that was it. He said, ‘You can’t come in like that. You have to remove the jacket and the wig.’ They just stopped us stone dead, and said ‘no, it’s a no, absolute no’.”

His friend Janet Martin, who attended with Wayne and performs as one of his backing singers, said: “It was just the way we were treated. He looked me up and down and went, ‘You’re just not going in like that. It’s insulting to Barry.’ I went, ‘Oh my gosh’. I said, ‘How on earth can this be insulting to anybody?’ I mean, it’s so joyous, it’s a celebration. We’re celebrating his return back to the stage.”

Wayne added: “I wanted to go in wearing this because Janet she made this costume by hand, and it took her nearly two years to make. She’d studied, and she’s made all the other costumes that we performed with in our show, which we tour, and they’re identical jackets to Barry’s.

“This particular jacket was the speciality one, took a long time, and I wanted to go in to wear it and sort of just say to Barry, you know, look what Janet’s made, and for him to say, ‘Oh, it’s great.’ For some reason we were just knocked back on this, and I was really disappointed.

“It’s not something that I think, ‘Well, I’ll just take the mickey out of Barry’ or something. It wasn’t like that at all. But we were sitting in the two seats, right at the front, and obviously with Barry singing, and he was really close.

“We’d been in the front row, he would be able to see us and how we dressed, so whether he mentioned to the guys as he left the stage, ‘Don’t let those two in’, for whatever reason, we don’t know. We were not offered a refund on the tickets, I had to ask for that.”

Janet said: “I’ve got to say, my stomach absolutely churned, because we’ve been boogieing away at the front, right in the middle, right under his feet all night, and to think he’s been looking down on us, feeling insulted. That’s what really knocks my stomach.

“We’ve got tickets for September, again, front row, in Vegas, and I just don’t…I can’t face it.”