SKY WITH DIAMONDS
“I should have been born in the ’60s. You could sing with a full orchestra. There was something classic about that time that we’ve lost. Real gentlemen don’t exist anymore. Men need to start acting like men.”
It’s all going too fast, she says. Yesterday she was a waitress; now she’s being interviewed.
“I’m terrified of forgetting things.” So she takes photos with disposable cameras; she paints, so she will remember.
“I always knew something big would happen but I didn’t think it would be fresh out of high school. I’m young. I’m at the best time to be creative.”
It makes her furious when she sees girls her age falling pregnant. “I’ve always said: ‘Follow your dreams, not a man’.”
As a young artist, she says, people don’t always take her seriously, but “even a 10-year-old knows what they want”.
What does she want? “To do things my way. I’m the one on stage selling this product.” She’s envious of the Rihannas of the world. “They’ll never face a disappointed crowd again. Envy is a monster that’s in all of us.”
“Sorry, I know I talk in circles,” she says. There are paint splotches on her boots. I notice she bites her fingernails.
She bites them now when she admits she was “gutted” about not winning a Sama after receiving five nominations this year.
“And they put me in the front seat. I thought, ‘If I don’t win I’m going to be mad’. I worked my ass off. I deserved at least Best Female Artist.”
Fame has lost some of its lustre. “This is not a fantasy; this is smackbang reality. I’ve been screwed over. It’s hard to trust people in this business. It has been a huge learning curve.”