Nelson Mandela was a fan of singer Amy Winehouse after she made a joke about his time in prison, Gordon Brown revealed.
The former prime minister said the pair met at Mr Mandela’s 90 birthday celebrations.
Winehouse began chatting to the former South African president and compared him to her husband.
In an interview with the Guardian's G2 magazine, Mr Brown said: "The person he (Mr Mandela) most liked was Amy Winehouse.
"She said to him: 'You and my husband have a lot in common'. "He said, 'Oh, what is that?' "She said, 'You've both spent a long time in prison'."
Mr Mandela was held in the highest esteem across the world for leading South Africa's transition from white-minority rule in the 1990s after 27 years in jail. He became the country's first black president and died last year at 95.
Fielder-Civil, a video producer, was 26 when he was sentenced to 27 months in jail back in 2008 after admitting grievous bodily harm and perverting the course of justice in a £200,000 trial-fixing plot aimed at trying to save him from prison.
He and Winehouse were married in 2007 but divorced two years later after a troubled on-off relationship.
Last year, a second inquest into Winehouse's death confirmed that she died from alcohol poisoning after a drinking binge. The same verdict of misadventure was recorded at a re-hearing of the inquest - after the first was heard by a coroner who did not have the correct qualifications.
The 27-year-old Back To Black star was found dead at her flat in Camden, north London, on July 23, 2011.
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