Fierce (30 page)

Being in Japan forced me to do a lot of soul-searching because, apart from Jude, there was no one else to talk. I learned that I’m not very good at being alone. I missed home so much and I ate my feelings. I would sit in my apartment and eat. I couldn’t find anything to eat that was green and wasn’t seaweed. I couldn’t find a vegetable anywhere. I ate bowls of rice and two avocados every day.

I was proud of myself for sticking it out. I really was. It was the longest that I’ve been without any familiarity and it taught me that that can be a good thing sometimes.

W
HEN
I came back to London, I was asked to stand in for the DJ Zane Lowe on his Radio 1 show. He had gone back to New Zealand for his annual holiday.

Just walking into that building in central London made my stomach flip over. I’d been there a few times to do interviews when we were over from America promoting
The Osbournes
, but actually presenting a show was just incredible.

I’d grown up on Radio 1. It reminded me of when I was in England,
sitting in the back of my mum’s car and looking at the clock as she drove us to school while wiping the Marmite and toast off my face. We were still only halfway to school and the heating wouldn’t have kicked in yet in the car, but then I’d hear
Newsbeat
and a song that I wanted to hear and soon I’d forget how cold I was. Radio 1 played a big part in my growing up. To be able to work there was just fantastic.

After I’d covered for Zane, a load of people called in and said they liked the show I’d done. It was so cool. A few months later, the bosses at Radio 1 contacted me and said they were looking for a new DJ for their agony section on a Sunday night show called
The Surgery
. I was so fucking honoured to be asked.

The most daunting thing was doing the mixing desk, which is the panel of buttons in front of you that controls EVERYTHING! Every DJ has to do it. You should see the Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles – he is very good at it. He’s talking, fading songs in and out, reading the monitor for incoming emails, choosing his next song. I’m always mesmerised when I see him do his show.

I had lessons before I joined the show, but I was shit at the mixing desk. I really was. I would stand there with literally hundreds of knobs in front of me and two monitors at either side. I understood the basics and that was about it. I just about got by.

I saw it as a real privilege to offer advice to the people who contacted the station. I think I was a good person to do it because I’d been through a hell of a lot for someone so young. I was twenty-three and I’d experienced drugs, rehab, cancer, death, tragedy … you name it.

On the back of the Radio 1 show I was offered my own agony aunt
column in the
Sun
newspaper. It ran for several months and was really good fun. It’s a popular newspaper and it was a big deal for me. I mean, I’m not a journalist. I didn’t even finish high school, but all of a sudden I was writing for the
Sun
.

It wasn’t easy doing the Radio 1 show. I often left feeling as if I had the weight of the world on my shoulders, especially if we’d had a lot of difficult calls that evening. It made me sad. At times it did feel like a lot of pressure, but we had a great team on the show and I always left knowing that we had given the best advice. I had made a pact with myself that I would never be patronising on that show. But I would be bloody honest. There are very few people out in the world who tell you how it really is. Working at the BBC and especially Radio 1, was really good fun, which just added to the whole experience.

But the show was also really tiring at times because it meant I was working seven days a week. A few months before I’d joined Radio 1 I’d been invited to New York to audition in front of the bosses of the hit musical
Chicago
.

One of my mum’s contestants on
The X Factor
, Brenda Edwards, had starred in the musical and when Ashlee Simpson played the role of Roxie Hart in the show in London, Mum had gone to see her. So we sort of had connections.

Then one day, out of the blue, one of the bosses called Mum and asked her to see if I would be interested in auditioning for the show. I couldn’t believe it. I can’t dance to save my life.

I went to audition in an empty theatre one afternoon during the summer and I was absolutely shitting myself. I sang ‘Funny Honey’,
which is from the show and sung by the character Roxie Hart. When I finished, I was standing on the stage and everyone was just silent. I thought I must have fucked it up. But then someone piped up, ‘Hell, you can sing.’ I wasn’t expecting that at all. I left not really knowing what to think and then we got a call asking if I would consider playing the role of Mama Morton. My instant reaction was, ‘No way. I’m not playing a big mama. You want me to play that because I’m fat.’ But after I’d calmed down I realised it would be a fucking cool role to play. I couldn’t have played the Roxie role because there simply wasn’t the time for me to learn the dance routines.

So I became the youngest person to ever play the role of Mama Morton and I was on stage for eight performances a week. I went into rehearsals in London at the end of August 2007, ready for my opening night on 10 September. The first day I walked into the theatre in Covent Garden I didn’t feel like I belonged. I was surrounded by all these professional singers and dancers who sounded amazing and looked incredible. I was the name, sure, but I was on their turf now and I was so fucking nervous. They had worked their entire lives to get on that stage and I’d just been handed it. But the whole cast were all so lovely to me and they instantly tried to make me feel welcome.

On my opening night I had lots of mixed emotions – fear being the biggest. I’d not slept the night before so I was knackered too.

I’d invited all my family and my closest friends, which just made it even more nerve-racking.

I stood backstage and peeped behind the curtain watching everyone walk into the auditorium. Straight away I saw Amy Winehouse’s
beehive sticking up – you couldn’t miss it! I couldn’t believe the number of people who had come to support me. Especially when you think of all the dramas that go on between groups of friends. But they all came for me. Kate Moss came with Sharif and Fran Cutler and a whole bunch of other people. Mum, Dad, Louis Walsh, my half-brother and -sister Louis and Jessica and Dad’s sisters were also there. Melinda had flown over from America to see it with my uncle Tony. I was shaking as I stood at the side of the stage, and just before I was about to go on and sing my solo, which was the song ‘When You’re Good to Mama’, I threw up into my mouth and had to swallow it! Gross! I just remember walking on and seeing the biggest, brightest light shine on my face and my lonesome reflection on the stage next to me. And my heart was really pounding. I could hear it thudding inside me.

Is can’t remember actually singing my first song – not one bit. But when it was over, everyone clapping and cheering. It felt amazing – really amazing!

Mum and Dad came backstage to see me after the curtain had gone down. I was standing on my own on the stage waiting for them so we could have our picture taken for the newspapers. Dad’s face appeared first from around the curtain at the side and he had tears streaming down his face. I cry when I think about it. He was so proud and he grabbed my hands and said! ‘Pudding, I loved it. I really fucking loved it. You were so good, man.’ Mum was crying too. They both just hugged me and I felt fantastic.

It had been an emotional night for Mum. Her father had died a couple of months earlier and her brother had just sold a story about
her to one of the newspapers. Plus her beloved dog Minnie had been taken ill in America the night before. I’d seen her the morning before the show and I’d asked her not to come because she was so upset – it had all got on top of her. But she did come and she got coaxed into doing the red carpet with my dad. It was a mistake because she broke down and burst into tears in front of the cameras.

At the time – I certainly don’t feel that now – I was hurt by her actions and it felt like it took away everything I had worked for. The next day in the papers it was all about Mum. It was a night I had worked so fucking hard for and I wanted it to be about me.

I know that’s selfish and mean. And I know they were proud of me, I got over it pretty quickly when I heard about the reviews. The next day I got a call from Caroline, my publicist, who works with Gary. She’d seen some of the reviews in the newspapers and they were all saying really great things. I just couldn’t believe it, I really couldn’t. When she was reading them out to me over the phone I was saying, ‘Is this for real?’ When she put the phone down, I dialled her number again and checked it wasn’t a joke.

She was laughing and saying, ‘No, I’m not joking! Now do you believe me that you were really good?’

It was another big turning-point for me. Theatre critics are known for being tough, but they were good to me and that meant a lot.

The funny thing was that even though people were telling me I was good, I still just thought of myself as precocious, not talented, and also maybe a bit stupid because I was prepared to do all these crazy things people were offering me.

Chicago
was a massive discipline for me; I was doing eight shows a week. It taught me a lot. Sometimes I was at the theatre all day – especially if a new cast member was joining and we had to rehearse with them. I could never eat before I went on because I was so nervous I would have thrown it up. The nerves never went away, so I’d have to wait until 11 p.m. before I could eat anything.

2
007
was the best year of my life for so many reasons. It was the first time that I met Luke. One night after
Chicago
, I’d gone to the nightclub Bungalow 8 to see one of my friends who was DJ-ing. When I walked through the doors, the first person I saw was Luke. I turned to my friend Jenn, who used to be my PA, and said, ‘Oh my God, he is so hot.’

Another friend overheard me and chipped in, ‘That’s Luke Worrall. He’s on the cover of this month’s
Dazed & Confused
. He is seventeen.’

At some point in the evening we got talking, but I thought he fancied another model, so I gave him my number and left. I thought, ‘I am not going to try and pull a male model.’

For six months he got his friend to prank phone call me! I’d get random calls when no one would speak at the other end. It was really starting to piss me off.

Then the following March my neighbour, Kim Jones, was having a party and me and Luke were both invited. Kim Jones is the head designer for Dunhill – he is one of the funnest guys ever and I’m
always hanging out at his house. When I heard that Luke was also going to the party I was really nervous. When we got chatting he told me he was twenty-three. I just smiled to myself and didn’t say anything. I just said, ‘’Oh, a year younger than me.’

From that night we just clicked. The age thing has never been a problem for me. Where I’m lacking in maturity, he’s not and vice versa. Our relationship worked from the beginning because he’s the first person who’s liked me as much as I’ve liked him and the other way around. We are always laughing and talking.

Luke is not afraid to be himself. He doesn’t want to be the smartest person in the room, but he doesn’t want to be the stupidest. He always speaks out when he doesn’t get something. He’s not afraid or self-conscious. To me, bravery is very attractive in a relationship.

Luke is the love of my life. When he proposed the following November, I said yes straight away. We’re a little team and I couldn’t imagine my life without him.

D
URING
my stint in
Chicago
I got a call from Caroline to say I had won an
Elle
Style Award for
Project Catwalk
. The category was Best Female TV. I cried. I couldn’t believe it. This was an award that I had seen my peers and friends win. I’d given them out, but I’d never taken one home myself.