My Fight to the Top (14 page)

‘Would you like me to wake you up with a hand massage or a neck massage?’ she smiled. She asked Michael first and he started flirting with her. ‘I’ll wake you up, sir,’ she flirted back. I was ginormous at this stage. I felt like I was about to burst. I felt like I was living in a body that wasn’t mine and I was so unattractive.

Michael went for a massage that was supposed to last 15 minutes. He disappeared for 45 minutes behind the curtain with her. Nothing happened, obviously, but he shouldn’t have been gone for that long. Michael then went to the bar and he talked to the hostess for hours. No exaggeration. Every time I glanced over I felt a knife stab into my stomach. Michael always used to say blondes weren’t his type and that he preferred dark-haired girls. The hostess was dark-haired. Michael’s comments churned around my head. I hated the air hostess but not as much as I hated myself.

I couldn’t take it any more. You fucker, I thought. So I marched up to him. ‘That’s enough,’ I snapped. Michael got the message and came back to his seat. No sooner had he sat down than the hostess appeared again.

‘Sir, I’ve got some extra time, would you like another massage?’ she said, smiling sweetly.

‘Oh, that would be great,’ Michael beamed. I glared at him. What the fuck?

He disappeared again and I couldn’t take it. I turned to my company secretary for support. ‘This is a joke, David,’ I fumed. ‘Michael has been at that bar getting absolutely steaming drunk and now he’s gone for a second massage.’ I fought back the tears.

‘Never mind him. He’ll fall asleep,’ David said, trying to reassure me.

Michael came back to his seat, and I just stared at him.

I had to bite my tongue because our marriage had deteriorated to the point that Michael would blow up every time I said anything to him. It was as if I’d become his worst enemy. So I just looked at him.

He started shouting at me.

I burst out crying and he gagged me with his hand. I swear to god I thought he was suffocating me.
I can’t breathe
. I lashed out with my nails to get him off me and he bit my right ear. I clasped my hand over the ear to stop the pain and when I pulled my hand away I saw it was covered in blood. ‘Oh, god, help me,’ I cried. David jumped out of his seat and carried me to the toilet. Blood was pouring down my face. I doused the paper towels in water and tried to stop the bleeding. The sink ran red. All of this I did behind a shower of tears.

I eventually left the toilet holding a tissue to my ear. David was waiting for me. He linked his arm with mine and whispered, ‘You need to stop screaming. You need to stop now.’ I started to sniffle again. ‘There will be police at the other end at the airport and you’ll both get arrested. Can you imagine the press if that got out? It will destroy your business.’

His words struck fear into my heart. That was the last thing I bloody needed. So I returned to my seat and I did what I did best. I swallowed my pain and just got on with it. But even my skin wasn’t thick enough to shrug off what had just happened. I’d never had a physical argument like that with Michael before. I plastered on a smile as we landed in Miami but my hands were shaking. Trembling. I wished I were anywhere but there. ‘I want to go back home,’ I whimpered to David as we passed through customs.

‘You need to put this behind you. We have to do this shoot in two days. You’ve got so much money at risk. You can’t be fighting or you’ll put the brand in jeopardy. You have to grit your teeth and bear it,’ he advised.

David was right; we were paying tens of thousands of pounds for this shoot with Rachel. I couldn’t turn back now, even though I was so unhappy. God, I was so miserable in that marriage.

‘As soon as I get home, I’m leaving Michael,’ I said.

David sighed deeply. ‘Well, if that’s how you feel, Michelle. But remember what you’ve got. You have kids and a business together,’ he said.

It was just one of those things. I had to get on with it. At the hotel Michael and I shared a room. There was no escape even though there might as well have been a ten-foot wall between us as we lay in bed together.

Claire Powell and Dan the photographer witnessed a lot of fighting in the van on the way to the shoot. Michael was out of control. He would say I was this and I was that terrible thing. It was so humiliating for him to do that to me in front of everyone. Nobody knew where to look. You could cut the air with a knife. I looked out of the window and imagined I was somewhere far away. The tears burned as I tried to hold them back.

I didn’t set out to write a book about Michael and our problems but there is no way I could leave it out. It was absolutely shocking and people around us thought, This is not normal. ‘God, that is pure hatred,’ several of the team said to me. And it was hatred. I felt like Michael hated me. He absolutely hated me. I supposed it stemmed from when we nearly lost the business. The fighting over money spilled over into our personal lives. The company recovered but our marriage didn’t. The only thing I can thank god for is that we shielded our kids from a lot of it.

We arrived on the beach and we started setting up for the spring/summer collection. The first shoot in Miami had been fun. We’d been celebrating and laughing. This set-up couldn’t have been more different. I thought Michael was getting quite close – too close – to one of the girls on Claire’s team. You know when someone is stepping over the line. Watching them made me feel awful. It was like the plane journey all over again. I couldn’t bear it and I had to look away. But I was so lacking in self-confidence that I didn’t even say anything. I let him humiliate me. I can’t tell you how bad it was. I had to pretend everything was okay but it wasn’t – far from it. I knew that I shouldn’t be there. I shouldn’t have been on the shoot and I shouldn’t have been with
him
.

And then Rachel appeared, looking incredible in a lilac lacy bra and G-string. We were both the same age – 33 – but we couldn’t have looked more different. I was wearing my elasticated trousers and a massive, floaty shirt, fully buttoned-up so you couldn’t see my fat body. I was boiling under the hot Miami sun. Sweat was dripping on my forehead. Rachel, on the other hand, was looking amazing, wearing nothing but Ultimo underwear. I’d never really compared myself to our models before but suddenly I felt so ugly standing beside Rachel.

‘Smile,’ Dan said as he took a photo of us together. I cringe every time I look at that photo now.

I’d just had Michael fighting with me on the plane and in the van and I had watched him flirting with some girl. I couldn’t take any more. I broke down crying. Rachel stopped what she was doing and gave me a hug. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ she asked.

The floodgates opened. ‘I’m so miserable,’ I sobbed. I couldn’t keep up the charade any longer. ‘I can’t stop eating,’ I said. I was finally honest with myself. ‘I’m so depressed.’ Rachel is such a kind woman. She gave me a gentle squeeze. ‘I look at you and you’re the same age as me and I’m wearing these big elasticated clothes. I don’t know how to get out of this mess. I’m deeply, deeply unhappy and I can’t stop eating.’ I broke down.

Rachel smiled and told me to stop beating myself up. ‘Michelle, look what you have created. Look at the inventions you’ve come out with. Look at what you’ve done.’ But it fell on deaf ears because I couldn’t see my worth. I was blinded. Rachel then turned to me, her tone became serious. ‘Why don’t you start treating your body like a business?’

Ping.

Business – that was one word I did understand. My eyes opened saucer-wide. It was like one of those cartoons in which a lightbulb goes off above the head. ‘Would you ever treat your business like you treat your body?’ Rachel asked. This was coming from a supermodel whose business was her body.

‘No way,’ I said defiantly. ‘I’d do anything for my business. I’d die for my business.’

She smiled because she could see I’d got it. ‘So why don’t you think about
you
for a change?’ she suggested.

I nodded my head. ‘I’m going to do it. I’m going to lose weight and turn my appearance into part of my brand,’ I said.

‘That’s right,’ she smiled ‘and when you reach your target, do your own lingerie shoot and show all these women out there what you’ve done,’ she said. ‘Promise me you’ll do that.’

I shook my head adamantly. ‘No way. I could never do that. I’m used to being behind the camera.’ And then I laughed for the first time. ‘And there’s no way I’m ever going to look like you!’

Rachel wasn’t taking ‘No’ for an answer. ‘Lose the weight, and do the shoot,’ she said.

And that’s what I did. I turned my life around.

Stop wishing and start doing.

I
had a lot of weight to lose but, before I could figure out how to do it, I had a very special event I needed to attend. In 2005 Richard Caring decided to hold a charity masquerade ball in St Petersburg in Russia. Richard was the multi-millionaire businessman once brought in by Tom and Ian to help us and we continued to share an office with him in Hong Kong. By now he was also the owner of exclusive London nightclub Annabel’s, and Scott’s restaurant in Mayfair.

Private jets ferried a hundred of society’s crème de la crème to the ball that was to be held in Catherine Palace. Bill Clinton was also going to be at the ball and he was someone I had always looked up to. He’s my idea of a perfect man. I think he’s an incredible guy. We landed in the Russian snow on the Friday and were escorted to our rooms. Michael came along too. Things were not as bad as they had been between us on the Miami trip, but there was no love or warmth there. I kept my mouth shut so as not to say something that would trigger an explosion. I guess you could liken it to walking on eggshells – I trod softly.

Knock knock
.

I looked at Michael. We hadn’t ordered room service. I opened the door to this lady who had a tape measure hanging around her neck and was carrying fabric. ‘Hi, I’m your dress maker,’ she introduced herself. Oh, my god, we were having our ball outfits especially made up for us. I didn’t look at Michael as she took my measurements because I could always read his face like a book. I didn’t want to know what he was thinking about my weight.

The following day I remember getting in a lift with other women who were also attending the ball. ‘I can’t believe the dress she’s made me,’ one of them whinged. Is she for real? I thought. We were being treated like royalty – a flight on a private plane, caviar and Cristal champagne on tap since we arrived – and these women were moaning.

‘It’s disgusting,’ she went on.
It’s a bloody charity event
, I wanted to shout.

This woman was big, like me, so I made her an offer. ‘Look, my dress is gorgeous and I really don’t mind swapping with you. It’s for charity so you can take mine and I’ll take yours.’ I suggested.

‘Where is it?’ she demanded. ‘I’ll come to your room now.’

She just took the dress, she didn’t even say ‘thank you’. How bloody ungrateful! I didn’t say anything though because I’ve learnt that you have to pick your battles in life.

My new outfit made me look like the maid, but I didn’t care as it was all for a good cause. The palace was beautifully done up and the waiters were in Russian costume. The tables and chairs were gold and we drank out of wine goblets. We all got quite drunk while watching Tina Turner and Elton John on stage. Bill Clinton was sitting at the table next to us.

I kept catching myself staring at Bill Clinton. He looked great in a black and gold jacket. I found my courage, thanks to a few glasses of champagne, and approached the former president. He didn’t see me coming. ‘I’ve always wanted to say to you that I’m a huge fan,’ I gushed. Everyone at his table was staring at me. ‘I just… I just… I just… want to be Monica,’ I prattled on, saying the name of the intern who had an affair with Clinton in the 1990s. Obviously I meant to say I’d wished I were Bill’s wife, Hillary.

Oh, fuck. Did she really say that?
Everyone looked at me with disbelief.

Clinton’s face just dropped. I’m probably one of the only people to render him speechless. You see; I hardly ever drank alcohol. My weight gain was all down to sugar and grease, not boozing. And it was probably a good thing I didn’t when I came out with a faux pas like that! I got dragged off before he could say anything or before I could put my foot in it even further. The experience was highly embarrassing. Luckily, Michael was on another table and didn’t hear me shoot my mouth off.

The ball itself was an incredible success – Richard would go on to raise an incredible amount of money, something like £15 million in one weekend for children – what a guy! I remember getting the coach back after the dinner and sitting next to Sting and Sir Cliff Richard when Michael and I started everyone off singing a school-kid chant: ‘The back of the bus they cannae sing, they cannae sing…’ It’s a Scottish thing. I don’t think anyone had a clue what I was on about, but they still joined in as we rounded off the night. The ball had shown that there were times when I laughed and had fun. It wasn’t all misery but the good times were few and far between.

When I got back to Glasgow it was back to business. I was sitting in a board meeting with the Prince’s Trust when all my insecurities returned. I felt like the odd one out – the big, fat, ugly woman in the room. The party was over. I came down to earth with a bang. I could barely hang on until the end of the meeting and then the floodgates opened.

‘Michelle, what’s wrong?’ one of the women asked, concerned.

It wasn’t like me at all to behave in this way. I hadn’t been brought up to pour my heart out. I’d turned into a bloody weeping willow. ‘I want to lose my weight,’ I sobbed.

‘You need to go and see Jan de Vries,’ she said.

‘Jan de who?’ I asked.

‘He’s a herbalist, he’ll sort you out,’ she smiled.

I wasn’t going to allow my personal life to spill into my work. It was time to follow up my promise to Rachel Hunter and sort my life out. I went to see Jan in Troon. He was a Dutch guy, really friendly. ‘Any time I start a diet, I’ve finished it by the afternoon because my hunger pangs get too much,’ I confided.