Kelly comes out fighting: Drugs, bullying, feuds, as The X Factor battles to save its reputation, judge Kelly Rowland lets rip
By Rebecca Hardy
Last updated at 12:05 PM on 19th November 2011
When Kelly Rowland first appeared on X Factor, Simon Cowell sent a photograph of himself to congratulate her.
‘I put it next to my flowers,’ she says. ‘I love Simon. He calls me Lippy now. Which I guess is a British saying. I’ve never heard it before. He says, “Thanks Lippy for everything” because I have a big mouth.’
She laughs. Just as Simon must be doing. Either that or showering her with signed mug shots. For, as those who follow X Factor know, the so-called war of the judges is about the only thing that’s stopped viewers waltzing off en masse to BBC1’s Strictly Come Dancing this year.
From catfights with Tulisa to leaving her acts in the lurch the X Factor's Kelly Rowland sets the record straight
And it’s Lippy who’s been at the forefront of the spats, giving it both barrels. There’s been the catfight with Tulisa Contostavlos over the ‘bullying row’ surrounding Kelly’s act Misha B, the set-to with Louis Walsh when he dared to say what we were all thinking about talentless wannabe rock star Frankie Cocozza before he was booted off the show, her ‘extremely rare’ illness that saw her leave the show for a week, the would-she-wouldn’t- she return saga.
‘I was ill,’ says Kelly, ‘I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I stopped eating and drinking, and got so dehydrated the doctor put me on a drip. I was so sick I had to postpone everything. It was such a slap in the face when people said I was faking.’
I was so sick I had to postpone everything... It was such a slap in the face when people said I was faking
And the catfight with Tulisa? ‘In the heat of the moment the passion gets to all of us,’ she says. But I make my own decisions. I don’t hide behind anybody. I am the captain. I put on my big girl shoes and my big girl pants. I stand in my big girl shoes…’
Which isn’t strictly true. Kelly, 30, is actually wearing a pair of rather nice shiny boots today. Well, she is until she takes one off to show me a tattoo on her foot, which says ‘God’s gift’. Much the same as the words Tulisa is said to have been muttering behind Kelly’s back, although prefixed with
Going strong: Kelly says she doesn't hide behind anybody and makes her own decisions
‘She thinks she’s…’ plus a few choice adjectives. So, how are the two of them getting on now? ‘We have agreed to disagree,’ she says. ‘I won’t agree with everything Gary says. I won’t agree with everything Louis says, nor Tulisa. When she said what she said [Tulisa accused Misha B of bullying other contestants] I thought it was completely out of line and the wrong timing. I thought it was just not right. It hurt Misha. I was really kind of heated.’ Which is Lippyspeak for very, very cross. ‘But to not talk to her would be very pre-school,’ she adds, ‘and I’m an adult.’
The show has been trying to shrug off a reputation for sleaze since last year, when risqué pre-watershed performances by guest stars Rihanna and Christina Aguilera prompted hundreds of complaints. But the controversy plumbed new depths when wayward teenager Frankie was sacked from the show for his apparent glamorisation of alcohol and allegations he’d taken drugs. Does Kelly have any sympathy for him.
‘Yeah, poor guy,’ says Kelly, who admits she was stunned when she heard the news. ‘What should stand is what people do on stage.’ Off-stage Kelly is pulling out all the stops to make sure her acts win. ‘I’ve worked my butt off. There’s nothing wrong with being competitive. I’ve been spending until 1am with the girls [sassy Misha B, 19, and shy 16-year-old Janet Devlin remain in the competition when we speak]. I’m grooming them to become international artists. What I don’t like being a part of, though, is telling somebody, “No”. Devastating them. I said to Simon, “Oh my God, what if I’m a part of that?” I know how that feels.’
Kelly was kicked off the American TV talent show Star Search when she was just 12. She was appearing with Beyoncé in the group Girls Tyme, a forerunner to one of the most successful girl bands of all time, Destiny’s Child. It was, she says, ‘like my world had ended. You felt you’d had your heart ripped out. I’ll always remember hearing, “This band – whatever the name was – gets four stars and Girls Tyme gets three stars.”
‘So yes, I know absolutely how it feels when you’re voted off X Factor. I know what it’s like, too, to have a meeting with a production company and have the excitement of thinking you’re one step closer to being signed and then it doesn’t happen. So you try again. Then you get a record deal and then you get dropped. Then you get signed again but you have to wait five years to get a record out. All these things happened to me.’
And this is the thing about Kelly. Yes, she’s lippy. Yes, a lot of what she says gets lost in translation. And, yes, she can be a bit full of herself. But when she stops clattering about in her big girl’s shoes, she can be as soft as kid leather. Kelly, who has to date sold 82 million records worldwide, did not have much of a start in life. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, the daughter of Doris Rowland Garrison and Christopher Lovett, she was seven when her mother left her abusive, alcoholic father and took her to Houston, Texas.
Destiny's Child (from left Beyonce Knowles, Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland) pose in 2004
Once there, she formed a friendship and began to sing in a group with Beyoncé Knowles. Soon, she’d moved into their family home. ‘Music was my escape,’ she says. ‘It still is. I probably felt like I missed out not having a father. I would look at kids at school and see their dads pick them up and that was something I missed. Every little girl wants to be a daddy’s girl. It’s great when your father can tell you you’re beautiful.
You won’t hear it said like that from the rest of the world. ‘I felt disconnected in a way, and it’s only music that makes me feel completely connected. I dreamt of singing since I saw Whitney Houston on TV when I was four years old. I was so young and didn’t know how it was going to happen until my mother took me to Texas and I met Beyoncé.’ As teenagers Beyoncé and Kelly ‘worked our butts off’ to make their mark in the music industry and Beyoncé’s father Mathew, who began managing them, became a surrogate father of sorts.
I wanted that wedding. I wanted to be married. I wanted to have kids. At that time I was crazily talking about wanting five. You can just make wrong decisions in life.
They achieved heady success with Destiny’s Child, selling more than 40 million records worldwide, with hits such as Survivor and Say My Name. Mathew Knowles continued to manage Kelly when the group broke up in 2006, but her solo career was never as successful. In 2009 she decided to split from Knowles and spent her first lengthy period of time in Britain to promote her music.
‘I put on my big girl’s shoes and began to make my own decisions. You can’t hide behind anybody.’ There were reports of a rift with Beyoncé at that time, until she, too, changed her management team a year later. Kelly says now that she never felt lonelier in her life. ‘That was a hard period for me. I was staying in the Westbury Hotel in Mayfair and I remember being so tired. Each day was work, work, work. It’s like your body and your mind start saying, “You need a break” but I kept going. Finally I almost had a nervous breakdown because I was so tired and so homesick. I just wanted to see somebody I’d known all my life.
‘My best friend had a baby and I wasn’t there to see the baby born. That kind of stuff. I get choked up even now talking about it because I wasn’t there.’ Kelly’s eyes are swimming with tears now. She wipes them away. ‘So now it’s important to me to share those moments with my friends and with my family. I wouldn’t miss the birth of Beyoncé’s baby [Beyoncé is due to give birth early next year]. I can’t. I don’t want to miss those moments.
Friction: Kelly with fellow X Factor judges (from left) Louis Walsh, Tula Contostavlos, Gary Barlow
Kelly says she knows how it feels to get voted off X Factor as she was kicked off the American TV talent show Star Search when she was just 12
‘It’s life happening to people that I love and I want to be a part of it. I watched my best friend’s baby
being born on Skype. I was thinking, “Oh my God. When am I going to get married?”’ Kelly makes no bones about the fact she’s desperate to find Mr Right. She was engaged to former American football star Roy Williams six years ago and suffered the humiliation of appearing in a wedding dress on the cover of a glossy magazine the week he called off the engagement, saying he didn’t feel they knew each other well enough to marry.
‘I wanted that wedding. I wanted to be married. I wanted to have kids,’ she says. ‘At that time I was crazily talking about wanting five. You can just make wrong decisions in life. That was all a part of growing up. I just think it’s important to trust your gut. I did a lot of soul-searching afterwards, and I want to be married, so dating is part of that process.’
Is she with anyone now? ‘I’m happy,’ she grins. ‘I’ll keep it at that.’ Then the smile slips. ‘We’re all human,’ she says. ‘We all bleed the same. We all feel the same. My mother always says, “Babe, you’re just a regular girl. It just happens you live an extraordinary lifestyle.” This is a lot of stuff,’ she says gesturing to her entourage. ‘I thought only Whitney Houston would get this. Not me…’ her voice trails off as she wells up again.
The interview is at an end now so Kelly stands in her shiny boots. ‘I will see my father one day,’ she says. ‘It’s a missing part of my life. I just have questions I want to ask him – proper questions. We’ll just see what happens. I’ve been through so much as a woman growing up. It takes a lot to put on big girl’s shoes. I’m working on that with my girls right now.’ With that, she clatters away across the wooden floor.
Kelly is the new face of the ‘Make Mine Milk’ campaign, www.makeminemilk.co.uk. Her new album Here I Am is out on 28 November and her new single Down For Whatever is out on Monday.
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