Tulisa - The Biography (16 page)

As she continued to adjust to the tensions and pressures of the live shows, particularly the perceived rivalry with Rowland, Tulisa reportedly asked her predecessor Cheryl Cole for advice. An unnamed ‘source’ reportedly told the
Sunday Mirror:
‘The row with Kelly really got to her [Tulisa] and she has been on good terms with Cheryl for a while so she sent her some messages to see if she could help.’ The ‘source’ added: ‘Cheryl has been through it all and told her to just enjoy herself and try to patch things up with Kelly. Tulisa feels much better, thanks to Cheryl.’ The veracity of this unattributed story was increased when Cole herself spoke about Tulisa days later. In the first interview from Cole since she had been controversially removed from the judging panel for
The X Factor USA
, she spoke of her liking for Tulisa. ‘She’s lovely, I’ve known her for years,’ Cheryl told
InStyle
magazine in the
much-hyped
interview. ‘She came to my birthday party.’ Cole then scoffed at the perceptions that she had a grudge against Tulisa or that she would not be watching the UK
X Factor
. ‘You know what’s funny? People are surprised I say I’ll be watching and that I’m a fan of Tulisa’s, but all they know is what they read in the gossip magazines and it tends to be crap.’

Back at
X Factor
HQ, the official story was that Tulisa and Rowland had made up. Tulisa said, ‘We’re cool’ but she was not in an entirely placatory mood. ‘All this stuff about me not speaking to Kelly is not true,’ she said, but added: ‘She wasn’t speaking to
me
.’ She also confirmed the suspicions that the advice Rowland gave her on how to mentor her bands had also caused tension to rise between them. ‘Yeah, she was giving me tips on things, like showing me clothes she thought might work for Little Mix,’ she said. ‘But it’s not like I’m gonna ignore something that’s a good idea. I just didn’t like it at the time. I didn’t go mad. We just disagreed.’ More interesting was Tulisa’s revelation that she and Rowland had had a conversation about not just the show and the music industry, but also about life in general. It had been a healthy exchange between the two female judges, who found that they had more uniting them than dividing them. ‘We had a long chat on Saturday night – a proper chat about the show and personal stuff too. It’s quite stressful being on the show and there’s so much going on I don’t think we ever had time to just talk about everything.’ She added: ‘We actually have a lot in common, which might surprise some people. We might even do a collaboration when I do my solo stuff. There you go, bet you didn’t think I’d say that?’ She also said she hoped the public would realise that it was passion and not petulance that fuelled her behaviour in the competition. She was not, she insisted, being ‘stroppy’.

Meanwhile, she was also focused on life beyond
The
X Factor
. Participation in the show can become so overwhelming and all-encompassing that those involved can easily forget that life continues beyond the bubble of the show. Tulisa, though, was looking to the future and her plans to launch herself as both a solo music artist and also a celebrity in her own right, beyond the connections with
The X Factor
and N-Dubz. ‘My plan is to release my first single in February and then put out two or three before my album comes out,’ she said. ‘N-Dubz are having a break. We might not do anything for up to two years. We’re putting out a greatest hits record on November 28 which I hope the fans – new and old – will love. We put our heart and soul into our music so it’s kind of a celebration of the best stuff we’ve done.’

Another plan she had was to publish a novel. Addressing suspicions that ‘celebrity’ authors are sometimes not the author of the novels they publish but simply sign off a manuscript entirely created by someone else, Tulisa insisted this was her novel. She said she was busy working on storyboards for the book, which would chart the life of a Tulisa-esque woman. She hoped that 2012 would be the year that she truly launched herself as a personality in her own right. What would the younger Tulisa who, even before N-Dubz achieved fame, had happily admitted that she wanted to be famous, make of her plans and stature? She would have loved it. More recently, in 2010, she had said: ‘In 10 years time I want to be right at the top. Simple as.’ She spoke of her lust to achieve international fame, including popularity in America. That will be a big ask, but Tulisa certainly seems to possess the ambition, determination and strength of character to give it the very best crack she can.

Meanwhile, her next big ambition was to take Little Mix all the way in
The X Factor
.

A
s
The X Factor
live shows carried on, it was time to assess how successful Tulisa had been as a judge. The London newspaper
Metro
did just that in a kind of ‘half-term report’ feature. The article described her as ‘an unusual appointment to
The X Factor
panel and [the one with] the most to prove’. The article said that to her credit her presence on the show drew in ‘the youth quotient’, but said she was ‘ill-equipped to mentor groups when her only band experience is performing with a man in a chullo hat that raps about Facebook’. Most viewers, however, were giving increasingly positive feedback about her performances. With Cowell, too, in admiration of her and with her act Little Mix improving each week, Tulisa could afford to be confident about her
X Factor
time to date.

However, assessments of the judging panel were upstaged by the ongoing saga of the season’s most controversial contestant – Frankie Cocozza. His abrupt departure from the competition handed one of Tulisa’s acts a potential lifeline. Ever since his first audition, in which he said he was entering the competition to boost his chances with girls and then bared his buttocks, upon which he had tattooed names of girls he had slept with, Cocozza had divided opinion. His fans admired his rebellious nature, wild appearance and the hedonistic lifestyle that was so hyped by the press. His detractors thought him an untalented, ungracious act, ill deserving of his place in the live finals. After several weeks of live shows, during one of which Cocozza worsened his standing by celebrating his progression with an aggressively shouted swear word, many in the public were puzzled as to why he remained in the competition. Even his own mentor Barlow had at times been nothing short of damning of his act’s performances. Suddenly, midweek between two shows, it was announced he had left the show. This came after he was caught ‘breaking competition rules’, according to the show’s producers.

Speculation as to what his rule-breaking had consisted of was rife. There were widespread utterances of ‘good riddance’ as Cocozza disappeared into the sunset. One of Tulisa’s acts spoke in his support. ‘He’s all right really,’ said Andrew Merry of The Risk. ‘If you see him behind the scenes he’s a good laugh. I just wish the public could see what we see because he’s such a good laugh and a likeable character.’ (Cocozza has since tried to resurrect his career, including an appearance in
Celebrity Big Brother
.) Tulisa and a number of
X Factor
viewers hoped that Cocozza’s exit would see The Risk reinstated to the competition. Others expressed the opinion that the fairest move would be to bring the most recently eliminated act – Johnny Robinson – back into the fold.

Neither move would transpire. One of Tulisa’s acts would be given the chance to return, but not The Risk. Instead, it would be 2 Shoes who were handed the potential lifeline. In one of the more perplexing manipulations in
X Factor
history, producers announced that one of 2 Shoes, James Michael, Amelia Lily or Jonjo Kerr – who were all eliminated in the first week of the live shows – would fill the gap left by Cocozza. The confusion over this move quickly gave way to speculation. Was this move designed purely to get the popular Amelia Lily, removed from the competition by her mentor Rowland before the public had had a chance to give its verdict on her via the voting lines? As such, was this a thinly veiled
slap-down
of Rowland from the show’s producers? Other theories included suggestions that the entire plot had been written in advance, with Cocozza always destined for an early exit, allowing an always waiting-in-the-wings Lily to return and storm to victory.

And all this before the public had even voted which of the four eliminated acts they would choose to bring back. At least it took the heat off Tulisa. Though she realised that of the four eliminated acts, hers was the least likely to be reinstated by the public, she also realised that among all the attention being paid to Cocozza and Lily some was critical of two of her rival judges. Barlow’s judgement in putting Cocozza through to the live shows raised question marks against his judgement, as did Rowland’s decision to remove Lily from the first week of the live shows. With Walsh also facing repeated suggestions from the viewers that he had gone stale having been on the show since its inception, it was Tulisa who in many ways was retaining most dignity and respect as a judge and mentor. No journalistic assessments of her performance on the show could conceal that.

Meanwhile, Tulisa had some fresh campaigning to do. As competitive and focused as ever, she was keen to drum up support for a return by her act, 2 Shoes. The phone lines for viewers to vote on which of the four acts to return opened on the Friday before the next live show, during which they would close again and a count would be taken. The favourite to return remained Lily, but Tulisa was not about to take that as read. Indeed, she campaigned cleverly for 2 Shoes. Mindful that there was a constituency that had been sad to see the fun Johnny Robinson leave, she appealed to that constituency while encouraging votes for 2 Shoes. She said: ‘Now Johnny [Robinson]’s gone the big fun factor is missing and the truth is I never wanted to get rid of my girls in the first place. I just had to make a decision and unfortunately those guys left and they never got to show us what they can really do.’ She went on: ‘I think they can bring something different to the show and I think that it needs it right now considering the mood, so they definitely can come back and spice things up.’

As it turned out, the Saturday night show saw Amelia Lily revealed as the act voted to return by the public vote, as had been widely expected. She actually received nearly 50 per cent of votes, so she returned with a solid mandate. Her return was one of two big talking points for the show – the other being a 16-minute delay in the start of the show after a power surge at BT Tower interrupted the broadcast just as it was due to begin. Archived first-round auditions were shown to baffled viewers, as pandemonium broke out around Tulisa and her fellow judges, with producers desperately trying to get the show back on track as soon as possible. Once the show began, Tulisa looked forward to introducing Little Mix. When she did so, she described them as ‘my little muffins – Little Mix’. After their performance of the Lady Gaga song ‘Telephone’, they received essentially positive feedback from Walsh and Rowland, despite the latter saying they needed to ‘tighten up their harmonies’. It was Barlow who really turned on them. ‘Girls, I feel a little bit disappointed in you tonight,’ he began prompting boos and jeers from the audience. Barlow said it was not their performance that made him feel let down, but he felt they had become ‘predictable’. Turning to Tulisa, he said: ‘It feels like you’re running out of ideas for these girls.’

Tulisa naturally leapt to their – and indeed her own – defence. However, Barlow had not finished turning the screw. He interrupted Tulisa’s defence, and turned to Little Mix to ask: ‘Do you want to do something different?’ As the band members responded by shuffling and looking anxiously at one another, he said: ‘I think you do.’ Tulisa explained that ‘whatever anyone on this panel says’ she was proud of the girls and felt they deserved credit. She then appealed directly to the residents of the regions the girls came from to shore up the vote. ‘I want Newcastle to pick up the phone, I want High Wycombe to pick up the phone, I want Essex to pick up the phone,’ she said, and, beating the table to emphasise her point, she added: ‘and I want them to vote for Little Mix!’ After the results show, Tulisa let her hair down with another Sunday evening out. She joined her former act The Risk and the comedic Johnny Robinson at the G.A.Y. nightclub. Wearing a glamorous, sequinned white dress, she looked superb as she supported both acts. Later in the night, Aussie pop legend Gina G took to the stage to bring a thoroughly camp night to a Eurovisionesque conclusion. As for Tulisa, she continued the party at the exclusive Modiva nightclub later on.

Controversy was never far away in this series of
The
X Factor
, and Tulisa was almost continually right in the thick of it. Following Misha B’s second placing in the bottom two, the act herself was asked why she thought she had again polled so few votes. She referred back to the remarks that Tulisa and Walsh had made some weeks ago about her behaviour backstage, saying: ‘I think because of some of the past allegations that were made on previous shows … I think that has had an effect on the public and I just think I’m misunderstood to some sort of extent.’ It seemed that Tulisa’s public vow that she and Misha had settled their differences would not be enough to end the controversy. Nor, judging by the Tulisa-centric media reports that ran with Misha’s statement, would it ever be widely recalled that it was Walsh and not Tulisa that made the most damning accusation against Misha.

However, the harshest words being exchanged in the aftermath of the show were between Tulisa and Barlow. The reverberations of his criticisms of Little Mix continued when he explained later: ‘They had great vocals but what I want to see is something different. Then Tulisa let it slip in the corridor that they will be doing something different next week, so OK, fair enough, now she’s listening to me.’ Tulisa was quick to shoot back at him. ‘His ego is out of control, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Gary could have a party with his ego, he really could. We should have a birthday party just for his ego.’