| |
| 2007/06/04 01:27:05 瀏覽823｜回應0｜推薦5 | |
| 林志玲 |
Sunday, 19 April 2009
林志玲
愛情哲學
名模林志玲的生活態度與愛情哲學___陶禮君
應邀為本地一女性雜誌寫個專題：性感。而根據該雜誌的調查結果發現，半數以上的受訪者認為林志玲是他們心目中的性感首選(也許你不在認同之列，但這是很可以理解的，因為任何的調查都有黑洞。)於是，雜誌社透過各種關係，幫我約了本尊進行一次秘密訪談。
四年前，林志玲剛開始走紅，就因緣際會專訪了林志玲。
四年後，再次面對面，林志玲還是那個巧笑倩兮、得體有禮的名模，只是這次的她還多了個身份，演員。因為演出赤壁裡的小喬，林志玲躍上了大螢幕。
以下是雜誌刊載的精采節錄，有部分內容則是她的閨中好友提供的私房花絮。
成名之後，林志玲從不諱言自己的幸運。就拿拍電影這件事來說，大卡司、大導演，這樣一個躍上國際舞台的機會，讓林志玲又喜悅又感恩。回想最初，背台詞、練 走位、拿捏演戲的感情，林志玲的心情是戰戰兢兢的，因為她不再只是個漂亮的衣架子，她必須投入角色，讓整場表演流暢、連貫、有意義。
「拍赤壁，不僅僅是露臉大螢幕的機會，更是一種百分百的學習。工作這麼多年，老實說，我已經不想要有更多的名氣，那個東西對我已經沒有吸引力，我渴望能跟不同領域的夥伴合作，接受更多的薰陶、訓練，透過這些過程，讓自己更進步。」
不管大家看了電影之後，給她戲裡的表現多少分數，林志玲都笑納。因為，對林志玲來說，她知道自己盡力了。有掌聲，她謝謝，有噓聲，她還是，謝謝。
光有脾氣是沒用的，溫柔才是最有力量的。
邀約太多，應接不暇，然而即便行程滿檔(光看都讓人頭昏)。可是，林志玲總是氣定神閒，鮮少不耐，於是，敬業與高EQ成了大家對她的激賞。
「說我敬業，感覺上好像我多用力工作，其實，我只是很喜歡我的工作，喜歡，就不覺得苦，就會開開心心去做。至於EQ高，是因為我對負面的事情盡量淡然處之，哦，別誤會我不是駝鳥，有建設性的批評，我會接受，但如果是漫無邏輯地毀謗，我就會視而不見。」
不失控，進退有據，林志玲把自己情緒處理的恰到好處，站在現在這個位置，事件與經驗，讓她學會了生存之道，那就是：光有脾氣是沒用的，溫柔才是最有力量的。所以，把稜角磨圓是需要的，這樣，才能擁有比較多的快樂。
林志玲自嘲說，就像一開始，外界對她最大的攻擊就是她那自成一派的『嗲妹妹』風格。對此，林志玲有點委屈地表示，她並沒有去強化這種嗲，所謂她的嗲，其實是被誇張了。
「我其實一直說話都是這個樣子，我只是會保留那個原本真實的聲音，而我自己並不覺得它是很嗲。但，我也承認，在主持或者演戲時，這種嗲聲是一定要調整&做改變的。」
因為懂得隨心所欲，所以更加顯得林志玲落落大方。
儘管有著如日中天的身價，但林志玲仍覺得一切都剛起步，知名度是別人給的，她念茲在茲的還是自己的本質
摔馬，摔出了新的人生
2005年底，林志玲的演藝事業，正開始起飛，主持、廣告、唱片等全上門，這時忙著拍攝化品廣告的林志玲，卻發生摔馬的意外，讓她原本快速播映的人生，按下暫停鍵，卻在「暫停」這一刻，林志玲領悟新的人生。
『珍惜當下』是林志玲歷經摔馬事件後，最大的收穫。
同時，也讓林志玲想起有個日本藝術家告訴她的話：「感情像雪球一樣，愈滾愈大，一旦不滾動它時，也會融化，化為烏有。所以，一定要珍惜身邊的人，工作只是一時的，家人朋友卻是永遠的。」
至於感情，林志玲說：「如果遇到合適的Mr.Right，我不反對選擇婚姻啊！」林志玲認為心靈契合的伴侶，千金不換，一旦碰到了，當然要把握。難怪，林志玲的經紀人說，如果有一天，林志玲突然告訴她，她不做了，要嫁人了，他也不會覺得驚訝，因為，這就是林志玲對愛情的態度。
保持身材的方法：游泳或跑步機一小時(讓身體流汗)，然後每天喝4~5000cc的水。私房養生湯：用大同電鍋燉湯來補氣，「鍋底」有四物、紅棗、黨蔘、枸杞搭配雞腿。 養顏法寶：天生愛吃豬腳和雞皮，而且吃很多，補充膠原蛋白的效果十分顯著，另外則是每天吃兩顆水煮「蛋白」。
認為性感就是：健康、開朗、積極
認為誰最性感：綺拉奈特莉(Kiera Knight)、史考莉喬韓森(Scarlett Johnson)
認為幸福就是：對生活滿足。
認為自己最美地方：笑容
認為世上最美的東西：善良
認為女人最該具備的：真誠、包容、樂觀
最喜歡的身分：女兒
最開心的事情：泡個澡(最好點上香氛蠟燭、滴入精油)、大吃一頓
最難忘的經歷：前往非洲史瓦濟蘭探望愛滋遺孤，了解生命如此脆弱
最喜歡的偶像：奧黛麗赫本。_____(精采連結:http://www.wretch.cc/blog/camietao520)
不想當芭比
| |
| 2009/03/04 20:55:15 瀏覽66｜回應0｜推薦0 | |
| 今週刊20061122 小模特兒到橫跨走秀、代言和主持的第一名模，林志玲在事業如日中天之際宣布接拍吳宇森的年度大戲《赤壁》，推掉所有合約，卸下名模光環從頭學演戲，台灣第一名模能否蛻變為華人影壇新星，大家都在看。 「林志玲是小喬的惟一人選。」五月，華裔大導吳宇森向全球媒體公布他即將開拍的大戲《赤壁》第一女主角，是從未拍過戲的台灣名模林志玲。 二○○四年，林志玲像平地一聲雷，在台灣引起一股莫名的風潮，她走國際時裝大秀、代言的商品類別橫掃各領域、以「第一名模」之姿主持電視節目，成為金曲獎和金馬獎主持人，甚至繼蔣宋美齡和鄧麗君之後成為台灣郵政史上第三位登上郵票的女性。 這 樣的高曝光持續到二○○六年初，宣布接拍電影後，林志玲的新聞突然沉寂，電影經紀人閻柔怡表示，到電影開拍前，林志玲將接受一連串的表演訓練，不再接新合 約。劇本尚未擬定、舞台燈光還沒就定位、導演還沒喊開麥拉，林志玲為了還不確定是幾分鐘的戲分，硬是把數千萬元的合約往外推，在生涯高點選擇褪去名模光 環，沉潛蟄伏從頭學起。 林志玲為什麼這麼紅？有人說○四年總統大選後的紛擾讓林志玲的甜美更顯清新珍貴，有人說林志玲擁有天使臉蛋魔鬼身材，也有人歸因於高學歷和好家教讓她氣質出眾…，這些五花八門的分析，都不如在第一線與她相處共事的人的說法真實。 低身段 一 位資深綜藝記者回憶，走紅前的林志玲受邀到上海出席活動，同時間還有已在國際嶄露頭角的大陸模特兒李燕及一位香港名模，當天林志玲只穿一件低胸禮服，偏偏 天氣凍得不像話，大陸媒體的要求又多，三位模特兒在冷風中站了將近兩小時，兩位穿得多的模特兒早已面露煩躁，只著薄紗的林志玲身子直發抖卻還是笑容可掬， 這位記者當時就覺得，「這女孩，以後怎麼可能不紅！」 現在的林志玲是浪琴錶的亞洲區代言人，身價不可同日而語，身段卻沒有改變，浪琴錶行銷 經理周琬靚說：「有一次我們以芭蕾舞者的形式辦秀，志玲的經紀人很堅決地說她不可以跳舞。可是當志玲看完前面的秀，認為自己也跳舞，才能讓秀顯得和諧完 美，二話不說鞋子一脫就上台。」沒有彩排，林志玲脫稿演出，讓經紀人和錶商一陣驚嚇，「結果效果非常非常好。」周琬靚說。這一跳，林志玲展現了能文能 「舞」的一面，也贏得客戶的心。 在林志玲新紅乍紫時，就請她拍「植物優」廣告的愛鮮家總經理梁家銘也認同，林志玲的敬業態度一流：「代言人 最重要是敬業盡責，讓委託她代言的客戶感受誠懇；林志玲出門也都是搭她自己代言的車子，讓人覺得很窩心。」上個月，林志玲才以「設計顧問」的頭銜，發表自 己首度跨足設計的服裝，台灣區的總代理菁采企業副總Julia說：「因為她工作太忙，我們常常都是半夜在追她的東西，她連在曼谷轉機的三個小時都在機場畫 圖。」林志玲認真的程度，讓Julia心疼又感動。 人一紅工作總是排得滿滿，林志玲卻說自己也搞不清楚怎麼會紅，「但我爸爸說我從小就愛 笑，他說『志玲生出來就是一個有笑容的小娃兒』。如果笑容可以感染、帶給人家更大的快樂那有多好。」描述走紅經歷，旁人有一堆故事好說，林志玲卻總是三言 兩語就說完，爆紅當然是幸運的，但她超級敬業的工作態度，或許才是聲勢持續不墜的重要原因吧。 高ＥＱ 超高ＥＱ是林志玲給人最深刻的印象，人紅是非多，面對是非批評的聲音，林志玲幾乎從不以壞心情面對公眾，挑釁的問題或挑剔的責難，她總來個正面溫和又甜美的回應，像塊巨大的海綿，把所有不愉快當作試煉統統吸進去，而且似乎更壯大。 曾經與她共事過的富邦藝術基金會總幹事熊傳惠用人性的角度看林志玲：「像她這樣不會在大眾面前哭或生氣，才是正常人吧！許多藝人在鏡頭前情緒失控是為了炒新聞，就這一點來說，志玲簡直太不藝人了！」 執 導過林志玲多支廣告片的導演馬宜中索性說，「林志玲就是奇怪到極點。」早在八年前馬宜中執導已故港星張國榮的音樂錄影帶，其中一個入鏡的模特兒就是林志 玲，八年來，不論唱片圈還是電視圈，「沒有聽過一句關於她負面的話，這真的不可思議！」馬宜中口氣中充滿不可置信，「林志玲那種完美的東西不是演出來的， 否則會穿幫，我拍過太多明星，她的禮貌、聰明、敬業和優雅，我覺得怎麼可能有這種人，她今天有這個地位，就該她的。」 林志玲並非出道就一路 坦途，初進模特兒圈六、七年歷經起起伏伏，二○○二年選擇離開伸展台，到富邦藝術基金會擔任執行長翁美慧的策展助理。不過姣好外型、出眾氣質和敬業態度終 究將林志玲一路捧上無人能及的地位；但二○○五年七月，卻發生嚴重的「大連墜馬事件」，摔斷六根肋骨，走過鬼門關，靠著過人的意志力三個月後奇蹟復元，林 志玲說自己更加懂得珍惜和感激，傷後復出積極投入公益。學學文創志業副董詹偉雄分析黛妃和奧黛莉赫本：「她們都是在經歷『女性悲劇』後獲得更高的明星指 數……面對生老病死、悲歡欣喜，能否展現具領先性、時代感的行動風範。」林志玲摔馬後展現出來的，或許正如同詹偉雄所說，不論生命內涵或明星指數，都更加 豐富完滿。現在，第一名模要蛻變成為火候更成熟、層次更進一步的巨星，還欠缺什麼？ 走紅以後，林志玲邀約不斷，但每跨足一個領域，就有人冷 言冷語不看好，與蔡康永搭配主持金馬獎被譏為花瓶，她只是笑笑地說：「能當一個稱職的花瓶也很好。」事後證明，當晚的明星不是梁朝偉也不是劉德華，而是換 了八套衣服的林志玲，每下愈況的金馬獎硬是靠志玲姊姊賣力演出破收視紀錄。 現在林志玲自己要演電影了，想像當站到電影搭建出來的巨大影棚 下，和伸展台有何不同？「有一個小小的盲點是，我這個人可能太會控制情緒，我的情緒是一條線，沒有太大的起伏。我開心的時候會很開心，但比較少去外放一些 情緒，可是我覺得演員應該要有很多的情緒在裡面的，這是我需要突破的關卡。」林志玲說出自己進到電影領域可能碰到最大的障礙。 馬宜中分析林 志玲接拍電影的優勢和弱點：「有部分真的是走伸展台太久，造成她肢體甚至微笑，變得比較反射性和機械化。」林志玲承認，當模特兒會習慣找鏡頭，擺出最漂亮 的姿勢，但馬宜中也說，「她聰明絕頂，領悟力高，看腳本會檢查每個表演該怎麼做，做不到會問，皺著眉頭拚命看我示範。」這樣的態度和天分，讓馬宜中相信林 志玲可以拍好電影。 肯吃苦 完全沒有經 驗，林志玲接受一連串的表演訓練課程，她描述自己上發聲課，「老師要我練習發聲，三個鐘頭我就是對著牆壁一直『啊』。」原本是正字標記的娃娃音要改，模特 兒的現代感肢體動作要改，情緒高度控制的表演方式要改掉，問林志玲辛不辛苦，「一定，會有很多想像不到的事情，但是我一直說我要克服，比方說聲音。我覺 得，給我時間，我會做到。」在溫婉外表下，林志玲展露的是自信堅毅。 為了揣摩角色，林志玲笑說：「我找了很多資料，劇組那邊也有，真的很多 耶你知道嗎，我現在光《三國演義》大大小小就不知道幾套了，簡單的從漫畫書，然後是羅貫中的小說，還有相聲、康永哥的有聲書也有，反正你想到的我大概都 有。」現在她不是在工作，就是在讀古書，「我沒有野心想以後要怎麼樣，我只是真的覺得要把這一次這個機會做好，我跟導演說，這部戲是男人的戲，我在裡面所 承接的是橋梁的作用，只要扮演好這個柔軟的橋梁角色，即使是短短幾分鐘，我也希望能做好。」 「要讓大家慢慢忘記表象，就得靠再有深度一點的東西。」馬宜中說，「電影是所有娛樂性表演中，影響力最大也最有深度的，如果她證明自己可以演戲，她的全面性就更扎實，也許一兩年或三年後，就可以做更有影響力的事。」 林 志玲完美嗎？這個問題好像一點也不重要了，如果說林志玲是台灣現在離真正的國際舞台最接近的「明日之星」，沉潛蟄伏過後的林志玲，能否重現蘇東坡《念奴 嬌》 筆下：「江山如畫，一時多少豪傑。遙想公瑾當年，小喬初嫁了，雄姿英發。」的景象，相信比她走過的任何一場秀，都值得期待。 撰文：林易萱 攝影：聶世傑 |
Sunday, 15 February 2009
Lily Allen cleans up
Giving up drugs, the older men, the wild parties... Lily Allen cleans up
Plus the missing mum, the rebel dad, being expelled, and that fight with Elton...
Last updated at 10:00 PM on 14th February 2009
'I was never really concerned about my future because I always knew I wanted to be a singer,' says Lily Allen
Amid the chaotic whirl of Lily Allen’s new north London flat, the postman always rings at least twice a minute. There is a constant interruption of deliveries, principally Chanel dresses, handbags and other goodies. She takes the latest batch, walks past her grandfather Eddie, who has been living here for a while, and goes to her bedroom. I duly follow.
It is an arty mix of masculine dark walls, white-painted floorboards, original prints (nothing from her most recent fling, art gallery owner Jay Jopling, though), a mirrored chest of drawers surmounted with a framed painting of the Sex Pistols God Save The Queen record cover and a huge cushion-piled bed; and, oddly, slap bang in the middle of it all, a substantial roll-topped Victorian bath.
It’s anarchy, but it’s only skin-deep. She pulls open the top clothes drawer and reveals dozens of jewel-coloured Agent Provocateur silk and satin pants, neatly folded into separate plastic pocket holders; Stepford-Wife perfection. In her walk-in wardrobe, every pair of shoes is boxed and has a Polaroid of the contents stuck on the outside. In her kitchen cupboards and in the spice rack, all the labels face the front. And there is one overriding house rule: no drugs. ‘I don’t want people crashed out here all hours of the morning. I don’t want any drugs in this flat.
‘This is what I’m really all about,’ she adds, pointing to the ordered garments, shrugging off her vintage dressing gown (and yes, she has lost a hell of a lot of weight) and wriggling bra-less into a tight, black Phillip Lim couture dress.
‘It’s control. I have to be in control.’ Then she grins. ‘Even when I’m out of control I’m still sort of in control.
I know the point I’m going off the rails. But it’s my decision to go off them.’
Originally hailed as the quirky, kooky bright young thing of British pop when she launched herself through MySpace two years ago, Lily – daughter of hell-raising actor Keith Allen – rapidly became less known for hits such as Smile and better known for behaving badly, getting drunk, doing drugs, falling out of parties, crashing her own chat show and slagging off other pop stars. She also, famously, alternately berated herself or defended herself on her own blog.
She nods sincerely. ‘I’m not going to be doing so much of that (blog) stuff now. Thing is, for me, when stuff happens, I have to write it down. That’s what I was doing. Putting every emotion I was having out there on my blog. But it was too much. You can’t do it. It all gets twisted up. I’ve learned my lesson.’
She fuelled her own baptism of fire with her bloggings about being a mess and her bad behaviour. The newspapers were full of pictures of Lily stripping off in Cannes, falling flat on her face outside London’s Groucho Club and stories of a heated row with Elton John at the GQ Awards, where he allegedly bawled her out for being off her head (‘Not true, he’s a mate’), weeping after not winning a Brit (‘I wasn’t’), dying her hair pink, splitting up from her boyfriend, Ed Simons from The Chemical Brothers, after a horribly public miscarriage and then damning herself as ‘fat, ugly and sh**ter than Winehouse’, causing everyone to fear for her state of mind.
‘If you’d come to my place six months ago or two years ago, I wouldn’t probably be up by now,’ she says. (It is about 11am.) ‘There would have been empty vodka bottles everywhere, drugs, whatever. If you think, when all this happened I was 21. Becoming famous is all a bit scary and weird and I had no idea how to handle it.
‘On the one hand, it’s great – you get all this free stuff and party invites... and then on the other, I couldn’t even stay at my nan’s funeral to pay my respects because there were photographers all over the place. And God, I loved my nan.
'So much is written about you, and you look at it all with these photographs, and you think: “Everyone must think I’m a total t**t.” I don’t ever think I’m any different to anyone else. But suddenly I’m this cartoon of a party girl. If I didn’t know me I’d think I was a t**t, too.
‘So you go out and you get off your head. You get invited to parties and there’s free drink and drugs. Well you do, don’t you? What other 21-year-old wouldn’t do that?
‘Then you wake up and people are calling you ugly and fat and saying what a state you are. You have to deal with that or you can deal with it by just trying not to deal with it.
'And then something much bigger than all of it happens. At some stage the axe is going to fall. When I had my miscarriage I didn’t even know what I was going through, and I’m there and I have to put out a press release to say I was losing my baby. I didn’t deal with any of that at all. I just went out.’
She pauses and looks away. ‘The thing is, I didn’t actually start dealing with it until the baby’s due date. Then
it all hits you and you can’t escape and you have to just do something. You have to start dealing with reality.’
But Lily knows how to pull it back. She can turn the mad behaviour, the partying, the outrageous image on and off like a switch. Inside she is a carefully controlled, highly ambitious woman. The girl who just knew at a young age she was going to make it in the music business; the girl who is a perfect cross between her hard-working, highly organised mother and her wild, unpredictable father.
She looks up. ‘I had a dream last night my dad had died. That’s horrible isn’t it?’
There is a pause and I tell her that you always dream the opposite of what happens.
Instantly she laughs: ‘Oh God. That means my dad is going to live forever. Knowing him he probably will. I don’t know which is worse. Dreaming about him being dead or living forever. God help us all.’
You go out and get off your head. There's free drink and drugs. Then you wake up and people are calling you ugly and fat and what a state you are
When Lily talks it’s like listening to the lyrics of her songs. She is funny, charming, intelligent and honest. When bad things happen she doesn’t expect any help or sympathy. The only person she relies on in life to sort things out is herself. She kicked off her music career on her own, financially she is self-made (worth an estimated £3 million) and as a woman she is utterly independent. When she’s not talking or trying on dresses or dealing with the alterations man from the dry cleaner’s, she’s sorting out tea for her dapper seventysomething granddad Eddie – Keith’s father – and fixing up an appointment with her doctor. When he begs to demur, she tells him: ‘I don’t trust your doctor because he’s not my doctor.’
In the story of a dysfunctional upbringing, Eddie was one of the few figures of security. Lily’s grandmother, who died last summer, and grandfather spent much of her childhood looking after her and her younger brother, Atonement star Alfie. Her father, Keith, left her film producer mother, Alison Owen, when she was four years old, and it was Alison who then had to work full time to support Lily, Alfie and Sarah, her older daughter by a previous relationship, who is now 29.
Lily was sent away to a number of top public schools including Millfield and Bedales, and was expelled from several for bad behaviour.
‘I hated school,’ she says. ‘I hated being away from home, away from London. I never felt what I was being taught was in any way relevant to my life.
'I’m just not good with authority figures. My mum used to have to work all the time and we’d have nannies looking after me and my little brother. I’d be on the phone all the time saying, “She’s telling me to do this and I’m not doing it.” My mum would just say, “Tell her to shut up then.”
‘It was pretty hard to be a rebel in our house as there wasn’t much you could rebel against. Mum wasn’t into authority and everyone knows what my dad is like.
'I was never really concerned about my future because I always knew I wanted to be a singer. I just believed it was going to happen. I think I am very much a product of my parents.
'I can moan because they didn’t do everything I wanted and it wasn’t perfect, but ultimately I’m proud I’m part of them. They’re different. That made me totally determined and motivated to do exactly what I want. It can be good or bad, but it’s always my choice.’
'I have to have something to do. I need to work. I need to be busy,' says Lily
Eddie remembers things slightly differently.
‘Lily’s had her moments. But she’s still a sweet kid. My wife used to have a tape of her singing in the Millfield school choir, which she’d play again and again. When they were little kids, I don’t remember Lily causing any problems at all. She was the quiet one. It was Alfie who was the terror.
‘Of course, her gran and I are proud of her. Neither of us are very keen on some of the swearing or things she might do or say. But you have to accept it. That’s the way things are today. If you don’t accept it you’ll lose her.’
Lily shrugs. In many ways her unconventional childhood must have been the best preparation for life as a pop star. In between schools, she enjoyed tea at her grandparents’ along with visits to the Groucho and tiny roles in her mum’s movies (she played a member of court in Elizabeth).
‘Yes and no,’ she says. ‘There was always something going on. I remember Alfie being the bad one. There was always some drama with Alfie. You couldn’t compete. Unless you joined in. I think it did change me. It gave me independence and it made me look at authority in a totally different way. Like, it wasn’t ever going to be something that applied to me.
‘What I really wanted was a mum at home all the time, and a dad. It just didn’t happen, though. My mum had to work because she had to earn money. But that’s not what I want for my kids. I just want to be there.’
Lily can easily flick from being daddy’s girl to her mother’s daughter. Ultimately she wants to face up to her responsibilities. It is no coincidence that Lily gave up drink and drugs last September, the month her baby was due.
The other thing she did was disappear to Los Angeles and write a new album, It’s Not Me, It’s You. (‘I had to get away from London. All the distractions, all the parties. I’m not good with temptation so I just had to go.’).
The new recording surpasses her Grammy-nominated debut, Alright, Still in its lyrics and observations. The songs are about taking too much cocaine, party girls, mucked-up love affairs, the grand and the humdrum all wrapped up together.
Much of the album was written at the infamous Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles.
‘I wasn’t booked in there,’ she says. ‘My record company put me in this horrific apartment. I got there, unpacked and then just sort of exploded. I got back into my rented Mini with my girlfriend, piled all our stuff in and drove to the Chateau Marmont.
‘They didn’t even have a room.The guy on the desk told me there was just one vacancy, which was (a bungalow)
in the garden. It was the place John Belushi died in. He asked me if that was a problem. As if…’
Right now Lily is enjoying being clean and sober.
People take drugs because life can be dull. We shouldn't put drugs on a pedestal. Lots of people take drugs and then get up and work
‘I have to have something to do,’ she says. ‘I need to work. I need to be busy. What terrifies me is having nothing to do. I was terrified after my first album because I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know when the second album was going to work out. It does literally terrify me. That’s what gets me into trouble. I’m so terrified I need to numb my mind. It’s what I do.’
Lily has had a lot of therapy. Aged 18, she tried to slit her wrists after her first serious relationship ended. She was sent to the Priory.
After her miscarriage she sought help and every now and again she goes to ‘sort myself out’. She is clearly, right now, dealing with her wild streak. Other issues also lurk close to the surface. It’s not difficult to draw parallels between her relationships with men and her relationship with her dad. Lily seems to go for father figures.
‘I do definitely prefer older men,’ she says. ‘They just get me more. They’re more interesting, you know, have more to say, more to think.’
Simons is 39; her most recent ex, Jopling, is 44 and – rather worryingly – a close friend of Keith’s. Lily appears untroubled. You can see she accepts there will always be a chase. There are several mentions of a man called ‘Ricky’.
She is getting dressed up as she’s going to see him in his office. It’s not a relationship but, in her tight black dress and heels, she asks, ‘Does this look… you know… phwoar!’ And she laughs. She likes flirting. It’s up there with eating out, walking her dogs and fancy clothes. ‘But I have to be doing things. I like having a million things to do. Projects, challenges.’
She’s had dinner with Boris Johnson to talk about getting involved in some way with teenage issues. ‘It’s tough being a teenager. We have a terrible education system, there’s a lot of fear, lack of community. I just want to get involved somehow, to do something.’
She is also reading about as many things as she can: art, politics, foreign affairs. ‘I didn’t learn much from school but I’m a massive self-educator. I’m always reading, asking questions, on the internet. If I’m out and someone says something I don’t know I’ll get my BlackBerry and Google it under the table. I’m obsessed with learning stuff.’
In the corridor is a framed copy of her police arrest form following an alleged assault on a photographer in 2007. ‘I love that,’ she says. ‘I had to have it framed and put on the wall.’
You wonder if drugs will continue to be a thing of the past. She shrugs. ‘I’m not saying never. People take drugs because life can be dull. We shouldn’t put drugs on a pedestal. Lots of people take drugs and then get up and work. You can never say never, just not now.’
Lily has worked out that, in the end, it’s all about what you earn. ‘You start out and you just put all of yourself out there. And then you get messed up. So you have to draw back. It all still goes on. But I want to work, do well with this album, get a boyfriend and make enough money to buy a house in the country.’
Does she want this album to be a critical success? She grins: ‘Well yes. But most of all I want it to sell. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?’
The album ‘It’s Not Me, It’s You’ is out nowSaturday, 10 January 2009
Did John Travolta's weird faith seal his son Jett's fate?
Did John Travolta's weird faith seal his son Jett's fate?
By Richard Price
Last updated at 9:31 AM on 10th January 2009
As he struggles to come to terms with the sudden and terrible death of his only son, John Travolta is no doubt grateful for the all-enveloping support of his fellow Scientologists.
Losing a child is an unbearable prospect for any parent. Having to cope with such a loss while countless millions around the globe gawp at your suffering is beyond comprehension.
When you are a Scientologist, however, different rules apply. Or at least they are supposed to. As an 'Operating Thetan' on the fifth level of enlightenment, Travolta should not be concerned with such trifles as mortality.
Family tragedy: John Travolta with his daughter Ella, son Jett and Wife Kelly Preston
After all, according to Scientology's founder, L Ron Hubbard, the human body is nothing more than a vessel for drifting alien spirit.
It may sound like balderdash to most (and this, it should be noted, is one of the more believable aspects of the bizarre faith) but for Travolta and hundreds of thousands of fellow Scientologists, it is the truth and an undoubted source of comfort.
The death of 16-year-old Jett Travolta, however, has shed a new and distinctly unflattering light on the beliefs which are so fundamental to his parents' lives.
Jett, who died of a seizure at the family's holiday home in the Bahamas last weekend, had suffered from ill health throughout his all too brief life.
His parents controversially blamed a rare condition called Kawasaki disease, but according to doctors the syndrome has never been linked with seizures before.
Creator: The late L Ron Hubbard, creator of Scientology and science fiction writer, who died in 1986
A far more likely explanation, many believe, is that Jett suffered from autism. The teenager, who was virtually mute, displayed many of the classic symptoms of the condition, which causes nearly a third of sufferers to develop seizures in adolescence.
Scientology, however, does not recognise autism as a valid condition. Its exponents believe all psychiatric and neurological disorders are psychosomatic and sufferers are exhorted to shun medication, relying on a course of vitamins and minerals instead.
It is a hugely controversial belief which detractors claim has caused many deaths, as well as ruining the lives of thousands of mentally ill individuals who have been drawn into Scientology.
This has raised a number of questions about the circumstances of Jett's death and whether more could have been done to save his life.
A further number of discrepancies have been raised in the timeline of the boy's death. Investigating officers have stated that Jett's body had been left unattended for ten hours before he was found. A spokesman for the Travolta family vehemently denies this, claiming that the teenager was cared for round-the-clock by two nannies.
The man who found Jett close to death on the bathroom floor, Jeff Michael Kathrein, was one of these nannies. Despite his position of great responsibility - in his latter days Jett was suffering grand mal seizures twice a week - Kathrein has no apparent childcare or medical qualifications.
In fact, his day job is ostensibly as a photographer, running a small business with his wife.
So why was he given the responsibility of looking after Jett? He is a fellow Scientologist, sharing the Travoltas' outlandish belief that Thetans were imprisoned on Earth 75 million years ago by an evil alien dictator called Xenu.
It's the wild allegations which have long surrounded Scientology, coupled with repeated damning testimonies from former church members, which raise such disturbing questions about the very nature of Scientology.
And in the case of Jett Travolta, there are many who believe he would still be alive today but for his parents' slavish adherence to their religion's controversial beliefs about mental health and neurology.
In their defence, the Travoltas have stated that Jett was on medication designed to control or prevent seizures but was taken off it after a doctor advised them it had become ineffective.
And there is no dispute that the Travoltas are convinced their guru L Ron Hubbard (or LRH as they reverently know him) was correct in damning conventional mental health professionals as 'psychs' - deeply unethical individuals who willfully cause untold damage to their patients.
On Kelly Travolta's personal website there is a prominent photograph of her taking part in a hate rally against psychiatry. (Sample slogan: 'Psychiatrists create stigma and harm children.')
Yet despite their refusal to contemplate the prospect that Jett was autistic, many others were not so reticent.
Powerful: David Miscavige, leader of the Scientology religion and close friend of Tom Cruise - he was the best man at the actor's wedding to Katie Holmes
John Travolta's older brother, Joey, is understood to have urged the couple for years to recognise their son's condition. While refusing to go public on the subject, he has gone on to make a film about the disorder, titled Normal People Scare Me, and founded the group Actors For Autism.
Last year, the Travoltas' neighbours, Tim and Patricia Kenny, proud parents of a five-year-old autistic girl, threatened to call in the social services over what they described as 'abuse' of Jett.
'Scientology is keeping Travolta from acknowledging his son's autism,' said Mr Kenny. 'They see it as a weakness.'
Mr Kenny claimed the family left the overweight Jett to sit in front of computer games all day, eating junk food.
Despite the criticism, the Travoltas have never acknowledged any suggestion that Jett may have been autistic. Instead, they have focused on Kawasaki disease, which, they claim, was brought on by overexposure to cleaning products, particularly carpet cleaner.
They have often talked publicly about the Scientology-based detoxification regime they used to cleanse Jett's body.
Yet to the vast majority of medical professionals, the notion that such an approach could be used to treat seizures is nothing short of laughable.
One person who can provide first-hand insight into Scientology's treatment of neurological disorders is Tory Christman, a member of the religion for more than 30 years until she left in 2000.
She was an epileptic using prescribed drugs to control her seizures but a few months after becoming a Scientologist she was told by an untrained 'medical officer' to come off her medication and take vitamins instead.
The cause of her problems, she was told, was not physical but psychosomatic, caused by people antagonistic towards her Scientology beliefs (or 'suppressives', as they are known by the church).
'I began having grand mal seizures at home, out on the street by myself and in the Scientology organisations - this was a living hell for me,' she says. 'This went on for three months. I was losing my memory due to all of the seizures.
'Finally, one morning in the shower, I knocked my front teeth out during a grand mal seizure. All this time my mother was begging me to go back on my medication and, after so much trauma, I realised that I wasn't going to live if I kept on doing this.'
Christman had the wisdom to ignore that aspect of Scientology and eventually left the religion, going on to become one of its more prominent critics. 'I continue to speak out in the hope that anyone with any physical problems stays miles and miles away from Scientology,' she says. 'I cannot tell you how many people I know who have died from lack of correct medical help.'
Criticising Scientology in this manner is no small gesture. People identified as suppressives frequently find themselves hit with expensive legal action, picketing and death threats.
L Ron Hubbard introduced the Fair Game law, which stated that such people could legitimately be subject to 'retaliation'. 'They may be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist, may be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed,' he stated.
And while this law has since officially been rescinded, many witnesses insist the practice is very much in place - and is extended to family members and friends of people considered suppressive.
Undercover reporter Ian Halperin knows this only too well, as the only journalist to have successfully infiltrated Scientology.
He attended church meetings for more than a year and was even hooked up to the famous e-meter (effectively a rudimentary lie detector machine invented by LRH which measures minute changes in electrical resistance throughout the body).
Posing as an aspiring gay actor, he was informed that not only could Scientology help make him a star (with John Travolta and Tom Cruise cited as prominent success stories) but it could even 'cure' him of his homosexuality.
Power couple: Tom Cruise, who has been a Scientologist for 18 years, introduced his wife Katie Holmes to the religion when they started dating in 2005
'When I went along for the test, I didn't have a care in the world but because I was posing as the nephew of a multi-millionaire who was interested in Scientology, I could see the dollar signs in their eyes,' he says.
'The test results apparently showed that I was "stressed, depressed, insecure, emotionally fragile and slightly unstable" - which was news to me. They said they could definitely help me with my homosexuality - even though I'm not gay - and that I needed auditing (Scientology-speak for religious therapy).'
When he finally revealed that he was a journalist, Halperin was granted an on-camera interview with a Scientology official, only to realise later that a shadowy figure was standing in the bushes filming him.
The subsequent premiere of his documentary on the religion had to be abandoned when it emerged at the last minute that the digital projector had been purposely infected with a number of computer viruses.
There followed a period of intense intimidation, relentless threatening phone calls and one very explicit death threat.
'Having spent the previous two years researching the subject, I was only too aware of their intimidation tactics - and a number of suspicious deaths - so I ended up in hiding for three months,' he says.
Another man who experienced the darker side of Scientology was Michael Pattinson, a prominent gay artist living in Los Angeles.
He actually sued the church, with John Travolta named as co-defendant, claiming that over the course of almost 25 years Scientology had promised to turn him straight and he had paid more than $500,000 in fees for 'auditing' to achieve this.
He says: 'After that, I took even more courses and spent even more money, just waiting for the day when I would also be cured of what they called my "ruin".'
In his 1998 lawsuit, Pattinson stated that Travolta 'knowingly participated' in Scientology's repressive regime. It went on: 'Defendant Travolta has known of Scientology's "gulags" and "concentration camps"... through both personal observation and information received from a certain former Scientologist, but has deliberately chosen to turn a blind eye to their existence.'
Pattinson eventually dropped the action after running out of money. By this point the church had ploughed over £1.5million into the fight against him and showed no signs of relenting.
These are extraordinary claims, and yet there is strong evidence to suggest that people are held in custody against their will by the church of Scientology - particularly those who suffer from mental illness.
The biggest of these causes celebres is Lisa McPherson, who suffered a very public breakdown but was taken out of hospital against doctors' wishes by Scientology handlers. Allowing psychiatric treatment - which she clearly desperately needed - was anathema to her fellow believers.
Seventeen days later she was dead, having been 'treated' for her psychosis with nothing more than vitamins and auditing. According to the coroner's report, Lisa was substantially underweight, severely dehydrated and covered in bruises and insect bites. There was evidence that cockroaches had been feeding on her body even before she died.
Criminal charges were brought against the church but once again they were eventually dropped after Scientology's astoundingly well-funded lawyers succeeded in discrediting the medical examiner.
This is not, however, an isolated case. Margarit Winkelmann, 51, walked fully clothed into the sea and drowned herself in January 1980 after she replaced her medically prescribed course of Lithium - a drug commonly used to control psychotic behaviour - with a course of vitamins and minerals recommended by the church.
Famous followers: Actress Kirstie Alley, singer Lisa Marie Presley and singer/actress Juliette Lewis all follow the faith
Heribert Pfaff, 31, died of an apparent seizure at a prominent Scientology hotel after he was told to stop taking his epilepsy medication.
And Jeremy Perkins, a 28-year-old untreated paranoid schizophrenic raised as a Scientologist, murdered his own mother. The frenzied attack, in which he stabbed her 77 times, was carried out on LRH's birthday.
Scientology officials say these deaths are isolated incidents and in each case refuse to accept any blame.
Just as in the case of Jett Travolta, however, nobody will ever know if things might have turned out differently had conventional medicine - and wisdom - been allowed to help these poor benighted souls.
The least they deserved was a chance to recover, with genuine science used to help them rather than the unabashed quackery which Scientologists spout with such vehemence.
But with poster boys like John Travolta and Tom Cruise as the spearhead of its marketing campaign, Scientology is gathering hundreds of new members with every passing day.
Now Will Smith, the most successful black actor on the planet, is showing signs that he may be about to join them, having handed out vouchers to the crew on a recent film entitling them to free personality tests at their nearest Scientology centre.
He also donated a million dollars to a school which uses Scientology teaching methods.
And so the slick and inexorable expansion of this dangerous religious cult continues unabated, helped on its way by the endorsement of privileged celebrities who have long since parted company from the reality of everyday life.
Meanwhile, all around the world at this very moment, thousands more children whose families are Scientologists are at risk of suffering the same fate as Jett Travolta. But you won't hear the film stars talking about that.Friday, 9 January 2009
Cheryl Cole
Cheryl Cole: How dumping my abusive boyfriend as a teenager gave me the strength to succeed in life
Last updated at 7:15 PM on 09th January 2009
She's the nation's sweetheart and every detail of her life is pored over by her adoring fans. But in an exclusive interview, she tells ANNABEL RIVKIN about her gritty upbringing and how it filled her with the determination that has helped her become the biggest name in showbiz. Nicola Roberts describes how she's learned to cope with her pale complexion and Nadine Coyle spills the beans on her break-up with Jesse Metcalfe, while Kimberley Walsh talks about having children with her long-time boyfriend and party girl Sarah Harding explains why she's looking forward to decamping to the country and buying an Aga...
From scrapper in a tracksuit to nation's sweetheart: Cheryl Cole has charmed the public since her husband Ashley Cole's infidelity
Cheryl Cole is the nation's sweetheart and she's finding it all a bit overwhelming. 'It's scary,' she says. She's used to attention but not of the adoring kind. Cheryl had the highest profile of the five girls long before she accepted the job of judging the last series of The X Factor.
In 2003, before Girls Aloud's first single, 'Sound of the Underground' had vacated the No 1 spot, Cheryl had got herself involved in a fracas with a Guildford nightclub loo attendant over whether or not the lollipops on display were complementary. She was charged with racially aggravated assault and, although cleared of the racist charge, was found guilty of assault, fined and given 120 hours of community service.
She has been involved in a number of 'celebrity feuds', most notably with Charlotte Church and Lily Allen, and she married the footballer Ashley Cole in 2006.
The ceremony and party ran over 40 pages in OK! magazine for a reported fee of £1 million, which must have made the allegations of his infidelity earlier this year all the more humiliating.
A 22-year-old hairdresser sold her story, claiming to have had sex with a rampagingly drunk Ashley. Cheryl removed her wedding ring, lost two stone, looked stoic a lot, replaced her wedding ring and issued a statement saying that she would 'not let this woman destroy our marriage'.
Cheryl Cole arrives at the ES photo shoot looking tired but freshly scrubbed, and orders a full English breakfast that she works her way through while her hair is being done. On her wedding finger floats a vast yellow diamond that looks too heavy for those delicate little paws.
It was an anniversary present. She is 5ft 3in and slender rather than stress-skinny as she was over the silent summer months when, it seems, she was repairing her marriage. I ask her if married life is going well and she nods but bats away the question. She seems fed-up, either with me for raising the subject or with Ashley for obvious reasons. Or both.
In days gone by, the pages of Cheryl's interviews would turn blue because her language was so fruity, but now that she is a primetime favourite, she does not swear. Neither does she talk about her marriage. 'I always thought that if you are open and honest then that's best, but it came back to bite us on the arse,' she says flatly. 'That's it now. My private life is going to remain that way.'
Cheryl credits her role on the X Factor - and her relationship with Simon Cowell, right, as helping her overcome - the infidelity of her husband, footballer Ashley Cole earlier this year
It's strange because her natural tendency is to be completely open, so this new, guarded Cheryl is a slightly peculiar prospect. She's funny and chirpy and strong, and then she seems to remember herself and starts gazing quietly into her cup of tea. It's as though she's trained herself.
She and Ashley met at Princess Park Manor, a residential complex in North London where Cheryl shared a flat with Nicola, where Ashley had a bachelor pad and where Kimberley still lives. The Coles now live in a big house in Oxshott in Surrey. I ask her if Ashley likes her dressed up and glitzy or pared down and natural.
'I don't care,' she says wearily. I don't know if she's defiant or tired; one exacerbated by the other I suspect. 'We are always dressed up,' she sighs. 'Most people only put on make-up on a Friday night, but it's the opposite for us, so I just like to sit around the house with no make-up on and me hair tied up and some kind of face mask on, picking me nose.'
She was brought up in a council house in Heaton, a humble part of Newcastle. 'I love it when I go back there,' she says. 'I wind down the windows because there's a certain smell and it's the only place in the world that gives me that special feeling.'
She is the youngest of five. The first three are from her mother's first marriage and she and her younger brother Gary are from her mother's marriage to her father, who left when she was 11. 'Me oldest brother, Joe, has got five kids, which is amazing, and he works at Nissan,' she says.
Girls Aloud: From left to right Cheryl Cole, Sarah Harding, Kimberley Walsh, Nicola Roberts and Nadine Coyle
'Me sister Gillian has just had her second baby. Andrew is the next one, and me younger brother Gary has just left university and is the most adorable human being on this planet.' Andrew doesn't work and has appeared in court more than 50 times, mostly on charges of theft and vandalism. Cheryl is very close to Gillian, a single mother, 'but we have struggled a bit recently because the press have started on my family.
'They took pictures of her house and compared it to mine, but if you compare my house to most people's there is going to be a difference because I live a very fortunate lifestyle.'
The five girls competed in and won 2002's dimly remembered Popstars: The Rivals, so they are all competent, but if Nadine is the singer of the group then Cheryl is probably the dancer. 'I'm no Mariah Carey,' she says of her singing. 'I'm realistic about my ability.'
She went to a little '50p-a-go' dance school above the local supermarket and briefly attended a Royal Ballet School summer school but didn't like it. She won a Boots' bonny baby competition and appeared in a British Gas advert. School bored her and she left before taking GCSEs. She just wanted to perform. 'It was never, ever about being famous,' she says. 'I hear kids saying they want to be famous and I think, "You really don't." '
After school, she waitressed locally and, between 16 and 18, fell apart at the hands of a bad boyfriend. 'It was abusive and he was taking drugs and I wasn't very well,' she says. 'I was depressed and poorly for two years; really poorly mentally. I would wake up in the middle of the night and he'd be gone and every time you got a phone call you didn't know where he was going to be. I had to end it for my health. It was like a weird wave of strength.'
No wonder she got so thin and sad after the hairdresser's kiss-and-tell. It must have pushed all sorts of old buttons. I think she might be a bad picker.
It's been reported than Simon Cowell has offered her a 100 per cent pay rise to judge the next series of The X Factor. Her act, Alexandra Burke, whom she describes as 'an English Beyoncé', won the last series. Cheryl found the whole experience enormously rewarding, so much so that she's considering a career in management when she retires from performing. 'I didn't think it through when I was offered it,' she admits. 'I just thought I'd sit on the panel and have a laugh at the nut jobs. Then it escalated.'
The X Factor redressed the balance for Cheryl. She went from scrapping, tracksuit-wearing terror to wronged wife to nation's sweetheart. 'I had got myself into such a deep hole of badness - a lot of negative stuff,' she says. 'Till The X Factor there was this thing that I was the gobby bitch of the band. Yes, I'm opinionated, but I wasn't this person I used to read about. All these years I've guarded myself against criticism.' But for now at least, Cheryl Cole can do no wrong.
NICOLA ROBERTS
Nicola Roberts is a serious little thing. Naturally slender with bright white skin and copper-coloured hair, she is the baby of the band and was only 16 when it all began. Within months she had left school, become instantly famous, as only reality contestants can, and her parents split up.
So she was isolated, home was no longer home as she knew it, and people started on at her for being the only non-fanciable member of the band by virtue of being pale and red-haired. 'It didn't send me mad but I turned into a very deep thinker,' she says in her heavy Liverpool accent.
Runcorn redhead: Nicola Roberts in a £1,900 Collette Dinnigan dress (020 7589 8897)
'I had to rationalise what was happening and it made me a solid person because I was having a bit of a negative time, but at the other end of the spectrum my career was flying. I think it kept me level-headed. At that age it's hard to keep hold of your own mind but I had to keep hold with both hands. I also learned about people. I learned that people can be arseholes.'
Nicola, 23, is a plain-speaking Scouser. She once described Gordon Brown as 'a little toad who talks shite', and on the news that, after years of Chris Martin singing the group's praises, Girls Aloud have been invited to support Coldplay at Wembley, she says, 'He has actually pulled his finger out, that's what he's done. All talk, no action and he's finally sorted it out.'
She had just left school when they saw the advert for Popstars: The Rivals and her mother rang up and asked for an application form. When she made the band her mother said, 'You don't have to do this, you know. You are very young,' and Nicola was outraged. 'It pissed me off a bit,' she says now. 'I was like, "Are you jokin'? This is smacking me right in the face and you're asking me that?"' But looking back, I totally understand. It was her job to say that.'
Nicola moved into a flat with Cheryl in Princess Park Manor near Southgate, and the older girl (by two years) remains her protector. 'I think I'll always be a little sister to Cheryl,' she says. 'And if I need advice, it's Cheryl. We are very similar. I will go to Kimberley for advice but she's not a very deep thinker, she's more practical. For someone to help me they have to think like me, and Cheryl does.'
Nicola is living at the Mayfair Hotel at the moment. 'I'm a bit in limbo,' she says. She went out with her school boyfriend, Carl Egerton, from the age of 16 until the end of 2006. In early 2007 she met entrepreneur Carl Davis and they moved to a house she bought in Kent. They split up in May. 'Basically there is construction going on at the house so I moved to a hotel and now I don't want to go back,' she says. 'It's too far away from town. I'm 23 years old; why am I living all the way out in Kent on me own? What am I doing?' She is thinking that she will let her house and buy a place in London, possibly in Wapping because she loves the river.
She has a new boyfriend, Charlie Fennell, also 23, who sells boats in Dubai. 'After it ended with Carl, I felt I couldn't be arsed with this dating bullshit. It was too much hard work and it was stressing me out.' So she had a single summer, lounged around St Tropez for a few weeks and then met Charlie. 'Then I was like, this is not so hard, actually.'
She expects to spend most of this month in Dubai but she won't be sunbathing because she has come to terms with her colouring at last. 'I struggled with the idea of being this pale and it was a major issue for me, but your taste changes, doesn't it?' she says. She stopped plastering on the fake tan, swapped trashy magazines for fashion magazines and 'became more open-minded and worldly'.
The outcome of all this was her own make-up line for pale-skinned women, called Dainty Doll, which is sold through asos.com and the cosmetics company Jelly Pong Pong. She hopes to get it into major stores next year. There was an element of self-acceptance involved in this project and she has found it both liberating and exhilarating.
Nicola is a rather wry young woman who seems just to be starting to relax. Perhaps it is merely that she's growing up, something that most of us get to do in comfortable obscurity. 'I'm happy,' she says in her direct way. 'I feel more settled than I have ever felt, even though I don't want to live in my house. I feel content.'
NADINE COYLE
Nadine Coyle has something a little separate about her. While the other four sit in one room drinking tea and nibbling Pret sandwiches, Nadine, the voice and the legs of the band, sits on a sofa in the hotel lobby with her little sister Rachael. This could be because she wants to spend time with her sister without overcrowding the changing room, or it could be because she has become slightly disenfranchised from the other girls. She has, after all, moved to Los Angeles.
Nadine, 23, with her endless limbs and sweet Irish singing voice, was born and brought up in divided Derry. 'There were certain places you didn't go on certain dates,' she says in the strongest Irish lilt I have ever heard. 'I just grew up thinking that's how it was for everyone. I knew people who were killed and I knew there were bomb scares but you just lived your life.'
When Irish eyes are smiling: Nadine Coyle in a Sea New York at Joseph dress, £385 (020 7243 9920)
Nadine is the middle of three girls. Her father used to run car dealerships and her mother is a powerful Catholic housewife who was convinced, when Nadine started with the band aged 17, that her daughter would be 'abused; that there would be sharks; that people would force cocaine on me. That was her idea of showbiz.'
By the time she got into the band, Nadine had already been a winner on the Irish equivalent of Popstars, and had been selected to be part of the band Six. She was disqualified when the producers realised she was 16 and the rules stipulated that contestants had to be 18.
During the heats of Popstars: The Rivals, Nadine struggled with the dancing. Her legs are astounding but her arms are long, too, and even her fingers seem to go on forever. At 17, she just didn't know what to do with all this length and felt awkward even trying. 'It took me a long time because I thought I looked ridiculous and dancing should make you look graceful. I can see the point now but I still don't think ladies should show their armpits.'Nadine is marvellously genteel while managing to be simultaneously kittenish. This won her the attention of Desperate Housewives heart-throb Jesse Metcalfe (the show's male pin-up who played Eva Longoria's teenage lover), who she met in a bar in Sydney and who she went out with for 18 months until early last year when his drug problems and womanising became too much.
'I just thought, "I don't need this in my life,''' she says. 'I don't need to be on the front page talking about troubled this or troubled that. It all became a bit too Hollywood.'
For six months she has been going out with New York Giants American football hero Jason Bell. 'He's a very nice man,' she says, 'and I love a pretty boy. He's very stable and very smart. He went to Harvard and now that he's going into retirement from football he's going to be a financial advisor. I'm so impressed.'
Nadine herself has got a bit of a reputation for being financially astute because she has invested so heavily. She has a house in Barnet, Herts; a couple of rentals in Ireland, an apartment in LA, a house in Orange County (bought with her family), a bar in Florida called O'Malley's and another called Nadine's Irish Mist. 'I'm a bit dangerous with money,' she says. 'If I have it, I'll spend it. A few times in recent years, just through buying so much stuff as investments and dropping big sums here and there, I have left myself without enough money to buy a packet of chewing gum.'
Starting with her mother, 'the one with the power', Nadine persuaded both parents, her sisters and brother-in-law and nephews to move to California and went halves with them on a huge house in a gated community where her mother can bustle about and her nieces and nephews can play on the beach.
Nadine fell in love with LA four years ago when she went there for work. 'It was so tropical and yet Western,' she sighs in wonder. The rest of the clan moved there two years ago. Everyone is very happy, but it leaves Nadine with a hell of a commute to work in England. She is keen never to inflict her jet lag on the other girls.
While Sarah describes herself as 'hard work', Kimberley describes herself as 'the organiser', Cheryl describes herself as 'the mother', and Nicola describes herself as 'the baby', Nadine says that she is 'the singer', which seems to be coming at the group from a less emotional and more professional standpoint.
But then Nadine has the most stable family life so maybe she just needs the other girls less. 'I do most of the singing,' she says, 'always have done.' She would tend to go into the studio with the producer before the rest of the band and sing the demos to see which ones worked best. 'I can work at a quicker pace and just get stuff down.'
Nadine, for all her floaty Irish charm, is a lot savvier than she seems. She is perhaps the only one who might be a solo artist waiting to blossom. Trouble is, I think the others know it, too.
KIMBERLEY WALSH
Kimberley Walsh has the throatiest, smokiest Bradford-tinged speaking voice, which contrasts sharply with her honeyed, full-lipped looks. She is the organiser in the band. 'I'm the business one,' she says. 'I do all the accounts. I like to know the budget for everything and I sign everything off and they are all grateful because they are useless and they know they are.'
For the first couple of years of the band's life, when Louis Walsh was meant to manage them but didn't, Kimberley juggled the diary as well as the numbers and the girls would call her to find out where they were meant to be. 'Maybe it's my upbringing, but I would always rather know what is going on.'
She is one of those people who is good with money precisely because she lived through early financial crisis. 'It was quite tough because my dad's business went bankrupt when I was about five and everything changed. We begged, borrowed and stole to stay in the house but there were a lot of arguments and I could see the strain it put on my parents.'
The organiser: Kimberley Walsh wears a Zac Posen dress, £1,475, available at Harvey Nichols (020 7235 5000)
Kimberley, 27, is the second of four children, and her parents divorced soon after the youngest, now 21, was born. 'Not very nice,' she says, 'but we kind of got it. We knew it was better that they weren't together and at each other's throats all the time.'
Her mother is a music teacher and the children grew up around a piano. 'We were a bit like the von Trapps,' she says. 'When things aren't so rosy, you find ways to brighten them up and singing was our way. I mean, to go to McDonald's was a massive treat for us.'
She was about to embark on her third year studying English and media at Leeds University when she got into the band, and she never completed her degree. She feels that, at 20, she was better equipped than some of the younger girls to deal with the shock of the situation. 'I was a bit hardened to it and a little bit more comfortable with myself but it still hit me pretty hard to be honest.'
Except for one incident, when she was photographed smoking a joint at a party - she apologised and said she had got caught up in the moment - Kimberley has been left alone by the tabloids, largely because hers is the steadiest love life in the band. She met her boyfriend, Justin Scott, five years ago when he was in the now defunct boy band Triple 8.
They live together in a house in Princess Park Manor (where Cheryl, Ashley and Nicola used to live), and Justin now works in record promotions and doesn't begrudge her any of her success. 'He's just weirdly understanding about it really,' she says. 'I am lucky. I am no more talented than he is. I've done no more hard work than he has but I've been luckier. He gets it.'
She hopes they will get married at some point. 'In that way he's just a big kid,' she says. 'He still doesn't feel that we're old enough to get married and I'm fine with that. I'd definitely like to have kids with him one day, so let's see.'
Kimberley says she lives a simple life. She is hoping to spend most of January in the sun but it will have to be somewhere with lots of activities because 'Justin is mixed race, so he's not really bothered about sunbathing and he gets bored out of his head'.
Kimberley and Cheryl are the two most maternal members of the band and both are protective of Nicola. Not only is Nicola the baby but she has been consistently mocked for being ginger and scowly. Chris Moyles in particular called her 'horsey chops' and a 'sour-faced old cow'.
Although he has since apologised, Kimberley is unamused. 'Why would you do that to a young girl?' she asks. 'It's hard enough being a teenager. We always told her she was unique. Now she feels happy and that's amazing. It's just growing up really; the only difference is that she's done it in front of people.'
Kimberley might go back to her von Trapp roots and pursue a career in musicals when Girls Aloud call it a day. In the meantime, Gary Barlow has roped her and Cheryl in to climb Kilimanjaro in February in aid of Comic Relief. Neither has done any training at all. 'I'm scared I won't get up it,' she says. If she approaches the mountain with customary Girls Aloud grit, she'll be the first to reach the summit.
SARAH HARDING
Sarah Harding's nickname is Hardcore Harding because she likes a party. She is also the tomboy of the band. 'What you see is what you get,' she says. 'One day I might smile at the camera and the next I might give it the finger.'
Sarah was a proper babe before the other girls got themselves all polished up and, at 27, she looks like a rather hard-faced angel. She was 20 when she entered Popstars: The Rivals.' I had been through the mill,' she says.
She was born in Ascot but moved to Stockport, in Cheshire, when she was 14. Her mother was a secretary and her father is a musician, but she hasn't spoken to him since he walked out of the marriage when she was 15 - there was another woman involved but beyond that she does not elaborate.
She promptly left school, moved into her own studio flat in Stockport and worked four jobs (nightclub promotion, pizza delivery, gigging and a Saturday job at a hairdresser's) to try to support herself. 'I was a real ugly duckling and a tearaway,' she says. 'I had a spiral perm and dark hair and I was a bit wild, but I think a lot of that had to do with the upheaval.
Party animal: Sarah Harding wears a dress by Marc Jacobs at Harvey Nichols, £1,070 (020 7235 5000)
'When my parents split up I felt like piggy in the middle and I wanted my own space and I guess I wanted to grow up too quickly. It was hard work. I was trying to provide for myself and it was a bit of a reality check. My mum was going through a really hard time and I feel bad now, for moving out, but I didn't really know how to cope with it. I just buried my head.'
There's a weariness and a sweetness about Sarah. She's not as tough as she looks, but she's been surviving by herself for so long that she wears slightly grubby invisible armour. At one point she became notorious for her boozing and boyfriends. She went out with her Popstars: The Rivals competitor, Mikey Green, for a couple of years and with Daily Star columnist Joe Mott for a year, as well as being linked with Liverpool footballer John Arne Riise, actor Stephen Dorff and Calum Best.
Anyway, she was out and about more than her bandmates. 'I was single,' she says. 'That's what you do when you're single. And I was finding my feet in London. I'm a lot more settled now but I'm a social animal. I'm trying to enjoy my youth.'
For the past 18 months she has been with Mahiki DJ Tom Crane. They live together in her flat in Camden, north London and plan to move to her house in Buckinghamshire when it is finished. She also owns a buy-to-let in Manchester.
'Tommy is like my best friend,' she says. 'I always knew he had a crush on me but I was seeing someone else [Joe Mott]. He was always going, "So when are you going to marry us, Harding?" And then my relationship broke down and me and Tommy clicked.'
She's happy with Crane but a bit grizzly today. 'We bicker constantly and drive each other crazy. It's straining sometimes. It's hard work going out with a DJ who comes in at five in the morning. I'm knackered a lot more.'
Perhaps the whole idea of settling down is just a bit unnerving for Sarah. 'I'm very career-driven and that's got to come first,' she says. 'If you're going to be married, you can't have a full-time career. That's when marriages break up. That's what I think, or what I've seen. Maybe I don't have much faith in marriage.'
She has found fame 'fickle'. One minute she feels that the band are accepted and credible, and the next she's a slapper and they are irrelevant. 'I think it's come together now but for ages it was like we were a guilty pleasure, and I still feel like I have to justify myself as a person but that's just force of habit. I feel more carefree now. I used to feel that I was under a lot of pressure and that does take its toll.'
She has always wanted to act and has recently finished shooting a Dominic Savage film for the BBC, Freefall, which also stars Alfie Allen and Dominic Cooper. Sarah plays Cooper's girlfriend. She wants to do more acting. 'I'm easing my way in,' she says. 'I don't want to be known as one of those popstars-turned-actresses. I don't want to be used as a cameo. I want to be a serious actress.'
Sarah is a very independent girl both through inclination and habit. I hope she finds some peace. She looks like she could sleep for a year. 'What I want to do is sit around the Aga in my house,' she says. 'But I haven't even got curtains yet.' To console herself, she's just dropped a thousand pounds in Vivienne Westwood because it's next to Daniel Hersheson, her hairdresser. 'I splurged,' she says guiltily, 'and I shouldn't have, what with three mortgages and Christmas and everything.'
But when you're in the most successful British girl band of all time and you've been working since you were 15, maybe you've earned the right to a bit of a splurge.