We spent the next day with Natella's two children, the nanny, and two bodyguards. The two bodyguards were very strong and never let the child out of their sight. After Gianni Versace's death, his property belonged to Aligra. Italy being Italy, they were very afraid of being kidnapped. We found a boat and had lunch on the island in the middle of the lake. We then took a boat tour on the lake and returned to the house for dinner. It's all very lovely, what a life it is.
Early the next morning, we were picked up by a helicopter from the garden and headed back to Nice, back to real life, or something close to it in the world of hot girls.
Surely life doesn't have to be like this? The outside world sees me as a "classy hottie", a pop star and a millionaire, but I'm very unhappy. Going back to "Camp Hot Girl," as my mom named it (she even bought us each a baseball cap that said "Camp Hot Girl" on it), I felt how much like a prison it was. Usually when I'm feeling down, just looking at the bright sunshine outside the window cheers me up. The sun is shining brightly outside the villa, but it feels like winter.
When you're unhappy, you think you're different from everyone else, but a few days later that week, I was sitting on the ironing board in a small laundry room on the same level as the bedroom. Talk to Jace.
"Tell me, Jace," I paused, trying to find the right words, "are you really happy with Simon?"
Another pause. Jace walked to the door and looked down the aisle. no one. Then she looked at me, her eyes were so sad.
"No."
"So, what do you think we should do?"
"I just don't know."
Just then, we heard a man's footsteps on the stairs of this ancient villa. I jumped up, slid off the ironing board, and started ironing my pajamas without making any noise.
Waiting for an engagement ring
If we didn't have Nancy, I don't know what we would do. She is like a magical godmother, making things happen, calming all resentments, and her patience is as good as a statue. Nancy is impeccable and incredible at her job. If you called the office at 10 o'clock at night, she would probably still be there.
The day I met Nancy for the first time, I got another particularly good news. Louise is pregnant. This shocked my mom and dad a little bit, because although they were never very strict, for example, they never let us sleep with our boyfriends at home. Mark didn't sleep in my bedroom until after we were engaged. Louise was very nervous telling them this, but they were so nice. I never doubted that they would do a good job, but they did even better than I imagined about the whole thing. My dad was so excited when he found out that he was going to be a grandpa.
We were in Paris for the launch of Spice World, which has been released in the UK and US. The film was a huge commercial success, but was criticized by critics. The problem is that some of the snobbish B@st@ards who wrote the reviews were completely wrong. They couldn't see that this was a propaganda film from beginning to end. They said we were starting to make entertainment films, with vulgar taste, pretentiousness and dissolute laughter. Frankly, I think we do.
From the very beginning when we were talking about the possibility of an offshore tax year, we said we wanted to have a base and Ireland would be the ideal place. We may not be able to visit our family in the UK, but at least it will be easy for them to come and visit us. But Simon said no. As I said, he didn't like the influence of our family, and he was happiest that none of us had family.
There was no way a herd of rhinos would drag us back to the Riviera Gulag, but with a world tour looming we needed somewhere to rehearse, so Ireland was chosen.
That Christmas, Emma and I stayed at the K Club, a nice farmhouse-style hotel in County Kildare about 45 minutes from the airport. It only takes half an hour to fly from Manchester to Dublin, and the distance between David and me is less than an hour and a half, door to door.
County Kildare is famous for its horses and as I had always wanted to ride one I decided to give it a try. So while David was away, I started studying. I have been practicing for several days. Finally there was something I could do that David couldn't. I knew he had never ridden a horse because, like riding a motorcycle, the instructor wasn't allowed.
So the first morning he came back, we went to the stables, and I was fully equipped -- boots, hat --- and I even had the horse trotting, and I was thinking that I was riding really well, and he was Say: "Come on, let me try it."
So I dismounted and gave him my hat, and would you believe it, he rode away at a canter as if he had been born on that nasty horse. That's the most uncomfortable thing about David - he's an absolute genius.
K Club is a very nice place. In addition to the main building, there are some separate small houses, which may have been used as stable houses. Each house has a living room, a kitchen, a bedroom, and a bath. There is also your own little garden. Why don't we all come together? Our first show on the tour is at The Point in Dublin on February 24th, so it's totally possible. We wanted five of these little houses in a row --- or rather three at the bottom and two at the top. The only downside was that our rehearsal place was on the other side of Dublin and it took an hour to get there.
There's one thing I really want to get done as soon as possible - to get officially engaged, ring and all. I told the girls, and they all said, yes, it's great, just work hard. Now that Simon is history, nothing can stop us now. So where else but "Rockley Hall"?
I went to see Walsall in the FA Cup and the opportunity came up. Walsall are not a Premier League team, so no one expected Manchester United to lose. Of course, they didn't lose. We had everything ready, and it was still the same room --- just a different view. In summer everything is green. And now it is winter, very cold.
Unfortunately, word of our being there somehow got out. We woke up the next morning to find hordes of photographers waiting outside. But this is not the time to get angry. I'm so happy.
I miss my family so much when I'm not with them that the people I work with become a substitute for my family in some way. I guess that's why it hurts me that they weren't with us when we left Simon. A few are actually with us --- like Caelynn and Jenny. Rebecca Cripps, who ran our fanzine, and with us was Richard Jones, who had been second-in-command to our tour manager, Greg Rinne.
Richard was with us in Istanbul and it's great to have him back, this time as a supervisor. He was about 6 feet tall and slender but not skinny. Speaking of hair, he had it short. If it had been longer, it would have been very curly, but he cut it off. He wore an earring and a pair of small glasses with round lenses. He was a very nice guy, very caring and very good at his job. He always finds time to talk to you.
Another person who stayed with us was our choreographer, Priscilla. This time, we all decided to find some backup dancers, male backup dancers. (This is something Simon would never agree to.)
That's another reason it's great to have Priscilla with us. She knew all the best dancers in the country, and they did respect her and listen to her. When you're on tour, you have to be very, very healthy. The hotel's sports center happens to be right next to our little house. They allowed us to circle half the gym, so we put up mirrors and used them for rehearsals and training sessions with Jace. Jace is a young black man who had a car accident a few years ago and was told that he would never be able to walk again. Jace was not tall, but very strong, and his legs were as slender as a woman's. Maybe he looks a little weird, but he trains hard. David enjoys training with him because his training volume is quite heavy. I took one of his training sessions and I was like, yeah, you're a really nice guy, Jace, but you're just not the right guy for me because I'm a very lazy woman. This guy is my and Emma's nightmare.
"Do 10 more sit-ups, you know what I mean, you know what I mean," he would say.
We were so lucky, the sunroom was right behind the gym.
Although we worked hard, it was a completely different atmosphere than "Hot Girl Camp" because it was our choice. We were numbed by Simon, and now the five of us are full of energy. We are like electric currents, stimulating each other's sparks.
No life, only schedule
Divide and Conquer is one of the few things I remember from my school history classes. The teacher explained it using a bunch of sticks. When they were tied together, you couldn't stop breaking them---He brought a bunch in and we all tried it. But when they are separated, each one breaks easily. Just like we still eat together, work together, live under the same roof, and even our periods are consistent, I feel that this is what Simon is thinking about. Together, we are powerful and we have proven it - quite literally, we have conquered the world. We will never let Simon tear us apart.
Simon would go over to us alone and tell us something that people had been talking about. For example---me and diet. He makes no secret of the fact that he knows exactly what I eat and what I don't eat. This may be for my own good, but that's not the point. Someone "betrayed" me. But who? Security guard? Chef? Personal assistant? The only people we can trust are each other, and I'm sure Simon is trying to shake up our camp. Because in that kind of atmosphere, you won’t believe anyone in the end.
However, we were all so fragile without our families, and none of us wanted to lose what little freedom we had, and Simon kept a tight rein on us. One of the ways he does this is to select targets and treat them differently. A certain "hot girl" must not make any mistakes during that period of time. But the object of his choice may suddenly change, and you never know why. He has absolute power over what we do or don’t do. He let us know that anything - such as weekend visits with our family or boyfriend - could be canceled "for the good of the group." He promised me that I could meet David - which I did, in Paris - but until I got on the plane, I was still uneasy, afraid that he would turn around and say I couldn't go.
That time in France was one of the most unhappy experiences of my life. Maybe Simon could sense our unease, too. For the first time, he allowed our family to visit us in Istanbul. At the Prince Commission Charity concert in Manchester - our first live show in the UK - the woman sitting next to my mum recognized her and asked her if she would be there after the show Come see me backstage. Oh, no, my mother said. We don't go backstage. Oh, the woman said, Sterling Simon said I could go. This woman is Sandra, David's mother. This is their first meeting. So, our first live show in the UK, Jasper David's mother was invited backstage and my mum wasn't. This made me very angry. Now that I am a mother myself, how would my mother feel at that time?
The sarcastic people said that we chose Istanbul for our first live show because we didn't have the guts to play in a mainstream area. This is not true. It was PepsiCo's decision: they have been our main sponsor from the beginning, and because they sponsored the entire event, the decision was theirs. You have to choose a place where Pepsi over Coca-Cola, which makes the selection a little narrower. However, Pepsi is strong in Türkiye. Moreover, Istanbul is good for our image - it is a region where the East and the West blend, rather than the United States and the United Kingdom as the core. This is unexpected and a bit unconventional. From a business perspective, it was a great deal - all costs would be paid for by PepsiCo, including the sets, so we could reuse them on our world tour.
(Turns out, someone had completely screwed it up - the set was well built, but it couldn't be moved or used. Everything had to be completely rebuilt for the tour.)
The best thing about Istanbul is that we have our own live band. After the intense rehearsals at "Hot Girl Camp", I felt very comfortable performing live on stage. As I said, we are all actors and showing everything on set is what we do best. The audience loves us. Even the critics soon walked back their sarcastic remarks, bestowing on us British tabloid puns: "Istanbul was lit up," "The Fab Five converted them by storm," and "Betrayal is good."
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