Victoria Beckham. Never leave a Spice Girl hanging.
One of my very first phone interviews was with Victoria Beckham when she was still Posh. We were having a lovely phone chat, Victoria was always my favourite, and not just because she says my name in Spice World the Movie, and so when I heard the iconic phrase: “I’m Victoria, Malcolm!” down the phone, it gave me goosebumps. She was the ideal blend of charming and sarky and happy to take the piss out of herself.
Well, maybe I believed the ‘posh is difficult’ BS, because when she told me mid-interview that she had to go, I was like ‘Oh, ok. That’s that then.’ Before she hung up, she did mumble something about ‘calling me back,’ but I didn’t think for a second that she would, she was fobbing me off, right?
I was young. It was 6pm. I was in the arse end of Shepherd’s Bush (the BBC). I didn’t want to wait around for an imaginary phone call and so after 10 minutes of impatient huffing, I packed my rucksack and went home. At 6.15 she called back: “Hi it’s Victoria, Malcolm!” But I wasn’t there to pick up. Gutted. What a twat. Thank God my editor had hung around, found my questions, grabbed a Dictaphone and finished the interview…and didn’t fire me.
Todd Haynes: Don’t be shy. Don’t play it cool
I met May December director Todd Haynes at a London Film Festival Screening of his film Safe in the 1990s. Unbelievably, an audience troll heckled him for using Julianne Moore, because she’d just appeared in Sylvester Stallone’s movie, Assassins. I was enraged and heckled back that Julianne Moore’s performance had been incandescent and he should shut up, or something to that effect. Later in the bar Todd came over and thanked me for sticking up for him. After that, I ran into him from time to time on the gay scene and he was always very lovely.
Years later I went to New York to interview him and I mentioned that we had crossed paths before and that some of my friends had appeared in his movie Velvet Goldmine, which he had been prepping at the time. “Oh,” he said, the mists of time and glitter settling, “you should’ve been in that movie.” I gulped down the regret and quietly moved on to my next question. Navigating queer spaces can be hard and so we often project a veneer of being aloof. Not wanting to embarrass myself, I didn’t dare pursue the acquaintanceship or attempt to keep in touch.
This lesson taught me not to be cool, but real. In relationships where there’s a status imbalance, be it power, talent, class, beauty, or wealth, remember you have a unique commodity that people might value above any of that: YOU.
Nick Jonas: People change. Don’t hold a grudge
When I first met Nick Jonas, he was a kid. A kid with a heap of success and an attitude befitting a freshly minted teen heartthrob. I wouldn’t have said I liked him very much although his tweedy suit was very dark academia-coded and very much my aesthetic. A few years later, the boy had grown into a lovely, freaking hot and funny man. At my first encounter, he’d been abrupt, almost dour, leaving brothers Joe and Kevin to pick up the slack, which was annoying for me, because I knew our readers liked Nick best and I needed him to say more–than–one-word. Grown-up Nick was not only a babe, but a happy chatterbox, so laid back, charming and polite. Polite how? When I told him that if I heard his song Jealous on the radio, I sang: “I’m still Nick Jonaaaas,” he didn’t sneer, sick in his mouth or side-eye his manager, he laughed and took a picture with me. Teen Nick would not have seen the funny side, but people grow and if you don’t allow for that, you’re the stagnant one.
Kylie Minogue: Ego is the death of growth
I’ve met Kylie a few times and she is always like the version of Kylie that you imagine, but with extra sides you didn’t see coming. Kylie projects a sweet every-woman warmth, and that’s why we love her and want her succeed, but she’s also CEO of an empire. Kylie the brand isn’t a success by accident. So, when you talk to Kylie you get the lovely, funny pop star, but you also get a sharp, focussed artist and mini-mogul. This doesn’t make her aloof and abrupt, but alert and you can clock her thinking. She’s also surprisingly more human than most stars of her calibre. She doesn’t exist in a place of ego, she knows what she does well, but she’s humble to a fault too. You get the sense that she’s harder on herself than any journalist like me could ever be. She will tell you what didn’t quite go right, because she’s done the inventory. Despite the smiles, Kylie is not a ‘positive vibes only’ type of girl. Yes, she’s sensitive, but she can also handle the truth, and I think that’s how she’s survived for so long: she takes the temperature of the world, listens and adapts. Kylie would be the first to say that ‘Kylie’ is a team effort, and in a wonderful way that team includes all of us.
Miley Cyrus: Don’t judge a book by the cover you brought with you
As a teen journalist you meet a lot of teenagers and Disney kids. Sometimes that’s fun, sometimes it’s a slog because they’re so busy being moody, or fake chirpy that they don’t say very much. When I met Miley in a bowling alley, she was 17 and like no teenager I’d ever met. She was still in Hannah Montana, still Disney’s number one smiley goofball, but the person I met, was nothing like that – nothing of the sort. I found a person on fast forward, waving goodbye to the House of Mouse in the rear-view. She spoke with the confidence and clarity of a person in their thirties. She didn’t give off annoying child actress vibes, or even precious try-hard energy. This was someone you could imagine being friends with, someone who would sort your shit out for you. From then on, I never thought of her as a Disney kid and stopped pre-pigeon-holing other young people I met.
Kelly Rowland: Don’t be grand, be normal
You don’t have to be the nicest person on earth. But what if you are? What then? When I did a shoot with Commander Kelly Rowland it was one of the loveliest and easiest days. Americans can be a bit ‘grand’ but Kelly was no diva. She let the photographer know what she liked but left him to Work, (Freemasons radio edit) his magic and she did the same with me. A lot of celebs have a PR perched nearby to jump in if a rude question comes up. Kelly Rowland wanted to talk alone, creating a sense of friendly intimacy between us and when the time was up and her PR came to tell me to wrap it up, with a smile she told them that it was no bother, and she was happy to finish whenever I was finished. My jaw dropped. Most pop stars want to get out ASAP. Kelly, can you handle this? Like dolly, Kelly gave more than she had to, which turned a job into feeling like it wasn’t work Give more than you need to, do more than you’re asked, because someone will really appreciate it.
Carly Rae Jepsen: Swallow your whinge, and just do it
Working in teen press, you come up with some pretty bonkers ideas and try the patience of many a super star. At Top of The Pops, our most regrettable shoot – was a health spa feature where the Cheeky Girls pretended they were having colonic irrigation. Can you imagine? Why?! We must’ve been on drugs! For Carly, I would never, but I did ask her to act out a series of cringe poses, so we could cut her out on the page or drop in stuff around her in Photoshop. You could see her die inside at the request and then bravely soldier on. She did the shoot without comment, presumably so she could get out of there and put the horrible memory of me behind her.