Well done to Taylor Swift for standing up for herself.. we should all make ourselves heard
BGT ALESHA’S GUIDE TO WINNING
Women around the world cheered this week as Taylor Swift landed a blow for anyone who has ever fallen prey to unwanted wandering hands – and none louder than Alesha Dixon.
Britain’s Got Talent judge Alesha believes passionately in empowering girls to realise their potential, so much so that she has joined the Always #LikeAGirl squad to help mentor youngsters.
So she is delighted at how Taylor won her case against DJ David Mueller, who groped her bottom at an event.
And while the damages the US singer received were just a dollar – the nominal amount she asked for – it was the principle that mattered. Alesha is delighted at the example set by Taylor.
“You have to stand up for what you believe in,” she says. “Good for her. She’s not standing for any nonsense, and we all have a voice and we should use it.”
Few who have seen her squabbling with her fellow BGT judges Simon Cowell and David Walliams would describe Alesha as a shrinking violet. And clearly neither would she. “I’ve had many challenges in life that have pushed me to the brink and made me deal with things head-on,” she says.
“That’s the journey of being a human being. Every single one of us can relate to an obstacle, a stumble, a challenge, a failure – we’ve all had that moment where you go, ‘I’ve got a choice here’.
“What we do with that choice determines our character and where we go next. There’s a lesson that needs to be learned through every challenge, and if you don’t learn the lesson it just turns up in a different form at a different time.”
And Alesha, 38, has had her fair share of lessons. She hit rock bottom 11 years ago as she was dumped by her record label and her year-long marriage to MC Harvey ended when she discovered his affair with pop star Javine Hylton.
It would have been easy for heartbroken Alesha to vanish under her duvet with a box of chocolates and feel sorry for herself. But that’s not how she’s built.
Instead she dusted herself off, held her head high, faced the challenges and turned her life around.
Now she is one of the most famous faces on TV, a model, fashion designer and singer, and is happily settled down.
And she wants other girls to look at her experiences as living proof that life’s challenges exist to make you stronger.
She says: “In 2006 my marriage ended and I lost my record deal. It was a massive turning point.
“It was almost like, in order to go up, you have to hit the ground. I kind of lost everything – the universe had a really good clear out, and then I was able to move forward in a more positive way.
“A situation that felt desperate at the time became the making of me.”
It wasn’t the first time Alesha had faced trauma in her life. Growing up in Welwyn Garden City, Herts, she was just four years old when her dad left, and she then saw her mum suffer domestic violence at the hands of her new partner. At the time she dreamed of being a PE teacher before she was scouted to join girl group Mis-Teeq and was propelled to pop stardom. She recalls: “A lot of the challenges I’ve had, they happened quite young, so I feel like now in my 30s I’ve been allowed to enjoy my life a lot more. “Now I’m not afraid to fail, I’m not afraid to get it wrong. That’s a very powerful place to be.” But Alesha hasn’t always been so comfortable in her own skin. As a girl she was crippled with anxiety about what her future held and fear of failure often held
her back. “I was afraid of everything,” she says. “If I’m afraid of something now, I tend to do it because I think it makes me stronger as a result.”
The last time we spoke she was certainly a very different person. It was 2009 and she had just become a judge on Strictly Come Dancing after winning the 2007 series as a contestant.
She was still single after her split from Harvey, but was happily out partying in London clubs and enjoying dating again.
All that seems the distant past now she is settled with her partner of five years Azuka Ononye and their threeyear-old Azura, while her career is still on the crest of a wave.
Alesha says: “I’ve grown up! Finally. I’m more sensible now I have had a child. Having a daughter has definitely remotivated me and energised me to keep doing the things I love to do.
“It’s our job as her parents to build her confidence up so she feels loved, nurtured and supported, so she can go out there and take risks and make mistakes and know she’s got Mum and Dad there to pick her up when need be.
“I never want to put pressure on her. There’s enough pressure on youngsters without that added pressure at home.
“I’m sure there are a lot of people who got their A-level results whose parents were disappointed in them.
“Maybe they feel like they’ve let their family down or themselves down. The reality is that if you tried your best you didn’t, and if you didn’t try your best, OK start again, draw a line under it and come up with a new plan.”
Alesha now wants to pass on her life lessons to girls across the country.
She has joined the Always #LikeAGirl squad which aims to build girls’ confidence as research shows that during puberty 94% of girls fear failing.
She says: “We want to get them to understand that failing is OK, but avoiding and giving up is not OK.
“Even if things don’t go your way initially, your plan changes because of a bump in the road, it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a different path. Don’t hold on to that anxiety that cripples you and stops you going forward.”
For more about the Always #LikeAGirl movement, visit always.com.
I had a lot of challenges quite young so now I’m enjoying life a lot more ALESHA DIXON ON HER GROWING CONFIDENCE