Man with world’s longest tongue retains record after it keeps growing

A man with the world’s longest tongue 3.8 inches long (9.8cm) long is set to retain his record after it kept growing.


Stephen Taylor’s tongue has grown 0.2 inches (0.5cm) since it last made it into the record books in 2009 and is expected to carry on growing.
Stephen’s extra-long tongue has brought him worldwide fame and he once shared a 10-second kiss with actress Brigitte Nielsen in front of a live TV audience in Italy.
The teaching graduate, from Coventry got to meet Gene Simmons from Kiss, who was left speechless by the size of Stephen’s tongue.
‘Brigitte Nielsen agreed to kiss me, she was quite flabbergasted at the end of it,’ he told the Birmingham Mail.
‘Her husband at the time wasn’t too impressed and flew into a bit of a paddy.
Gene Simmons was quite shocked – well, it put him into the shadows a little bit really!’
Stephen’s admits his partner, Rachel, 45 ‘was a little bit scared of it at first’.
Guinness adjudicators take their measurement from the middle of the top lip to the tip of the tongue.
The average length of a tongue measured from lips is 0.78 inches (2cm) and Stephen’s extra long one gives him a lisp.
‘If you stick out your tongue and close your mouth most people’s tongues are only a couple of centimeters long,’ said Stephen.
He said he has always known he had a long tongue and it was put to at school when he used to stick it out behind his teacher’s back.

‘My mates would say “bloody hell Steve that’s a long tongue!”.’
Scientists have been unable to explain why his tongue is so long though Stephen, who has just finished a teaching degree, has got his own theory.
‘It keeps growing, probably because of all the TV shows where I’ve been sticking it out,’ he joked.
‘I can actually get it to 10cm with a push, but that’s a bit painful.’
Stephen went for the world record after his ex-partner had seen a girl with the longest tongue in the world on TV show This Morning, in 2002.
He said: ‘Just for a laugh she sent them an email with a picture of me and they got in touch the next day. Guinness World Records saw the programme and managed to get hold of all my details.’