Blonde Ambition

by Annette Sharp

  Pixie would soon be dubbed by some Australian media outlets ‘Australia’s Suri Cruise’ and ‘Australia’s Harper Beckham’—although only Baby Beckham had her own Instagram account and numerous fansites. Suri Cruise had no personal Instagram page. Her mother, Katie Holmes, infrequently posted blurry, undefined pictures of Suri to her own account—unlike Roxy’s shots of Pixie. To have her daughter compared to the daughters of megastars Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes and David and Victoria Beckham would likely delight Roxy.

  When Roxy wasn’t posting to Instagram on Pixie’s behalf, she was blogging in the name of her baby daughter. At eight months, Pixie was working. At nine months Pixie was ‘the face’ of celebrated Sydney chef Luke Mangan’s baby food range, Baby Bites. Shortly after, her mother was spruiking Pixie’s association with Coles supermarket’s new baby clothing line Mix. ‘There is no doubt that the opportunities that have presented themselves for Pixie at just nine months old are pretty huge—and they have all stemmed off her hugely successful blog,’ Roxy told Fairfax Media’s Jo Casamento.

  Having stunned audiences and media commentators alike with her shrill and bossy appearance on The Celebrity Apprentice, Roxy would polarise them anew with what many saw as the shameless product placement on her baby’s Instagram account. She was accused of soliciting product and commercialising her baby. Having crafted her baby’s spruiker profile over the previous year, Roxy, ever the unapologetic saleswoman, would argue repeatedly there was nothing wrong with the practice. It was fun for her and her baby.

  She would tell Beauticate:

  I started Pixie’s blog just for fun. Instagram wasn’t really around when I did that. It was used, but not used in the capacity it is now. So, I did it as a tongue in cheek way, saying thank you to people who had given us gifts for her. And then one thing led to another and I started the Instagram and it’s gone from strength to strength. There’s a fascination with it. First, it’s a lot of stuff … And you also just have to remember that she doesn’t look like a normal kid because of that red hair! That’s so unique. So, she stands out.

  ‘It’s no different to a proud parent or guardian sharing imagery on Facebook or Twitter—or for that matter, a child on the box of a packet of nappies or a washing powder at the local supermarket!’ she would argue to the online News.

  Roxy was promptly labelled an Insta-mum and in the days that followed something far worse, a shameless ‘Mumager’ in the style of US reality star ‘Momager’ Kris Jenner, mother to sex tape star turned fashion icon Kim Kardashian and her five siblings, and Dina Lohan, mother to actress Lindsay Lohan. Both women had been broadly accused of exploiting their children for profit. Roxy soon would be too. The criticism didn’t rock Roxy. It just washed off her. She was enjoying working with her daughter far too much to be derailed by condemnation.

  Another post to Pixie’s Instagram account in her first week had showed the chubby-faced baby posing for portraits for a talent agency. The sky was the limit for the new mother’s ambitions and hopes for her child.

  Roxy kept the media machine spinning with interviews and comment. She hoped Pixie would ‘look back and say “Oh my God is that me?” and have a good laugh in times to come’. It was, she reiterated again for the British Mirror newspaper, just ‘a little fun to share with friends and family’.

  In her first week on Instagram in June 2013, Pixie would also announce another coup—she had signed to her mother’s newest business venture—a blogger’s bureau, The Ministry of Talent: ‘Busy day! Very productive—I just joined @ministryoftalent—their first baby social media guru! LOL X’.

  There had already been London’s popular record label Ministry of Sound, founded in 1991, and the UK PR and events company Ministry of Fun, founded in 1997, both of which were inspired by the nomenclature of Britain’s government ministries (finance, education, health and the like) but were also a nod to the fictionalised ministries of George Orwell’s 1949 futuristic novel 1984, in which the Ministries of Love, Plenty, Peace and Truth preside over oppressive world order. The Ministry of Talent name was derivative of many things but was well received by Roxy’s supporters in the media and business worlds in 2013—few had heard of an online talent agency for the rising stars of social media.

  With Pixie’s signing to The Ministry of Talent came a fresh round of controversy as it was discovered Roxy had started charging for product mentions on Pixie’s Instagram page. In 2014, The Australian Women’s Weekly would unearth a rate card revealing Roxy charged $200 for Pixie to plug a product on Instagram. For Roxy, the sum only seemed fair.

  ‘Pixie is like me. I worked from a young age!’ Roxy reasoned in the magazine. ‘[Pixie’s Instagram account] is all a bit of fun and cultures her to know that, if you want something in life, you need to work for it.’

  Pixie would work. She would also play. Before she was out of nappies she had been shopping in Milan; toured the south of France, and admired her father’s outstanding diving prowess from the comfort of a blow-up toddler pool on board a chartered yacht on the Mediterranean; paddled in the Whitsundays and at Hayman Island; and flown first class in her own air pod. In the next two years, she would discover the joys of private jet travel with trips to London, Beijing and parts of Asia. She would also return to the Mediterranean for a cruise on board the Curtis grandparents’ 120-foot motor yacht, Vanquish, and travel to Japan and Fiji.

  Pixie’s collection of designer labels was also creating a stir. Her wardrobe had been a source of envy among the label-conscious mothers of tiny tots in many wealthy Australian suburbs. Her collection of designer clothing—Dior, Fendi, Burberry, Gucci and Missoni—suggested she would be across kiddie couture by the time she made her front-row debut at fashion designer Kym Ellery’s Sydney show at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in 2015.

  As she celebrated her second birthday in August 2013 with a diamond ‘nameplate’ necklace from a Sydney jeweller, she would offer her thanks on her Instagram account: ‘Ummm now this is what I’m talking about when I think accessories—thank you @davidnader @naderjewellers xxx #carriecollection #name-platenecklace #diamonds #whitegold’—her mother was already scoping new business opportunities.

  An order of some pretty custom-made clip-on hair bows for Pixie’s second birthday celebrations would result in inquiries from Instagram followers that would inspire a new business. ‘It started when people on Instagram would ask, “Where did you get [the hair bows]?” And I was like, “Do you know what, I can’t bring myself to tell someone where I got it, I’m going to make them!” So we started making them,’ she told Beauticate.

  Harnessing her parents’ fashion manufacturing acumen, Roxy soon undertook the production of Pixie’s Bows. After registering the tradename in April 2014, Roxy would source a manufacturer in China. The registration specifications indicated Roxy had future plans for the new line of accessories that would start with fabric bows on clips and headbands. The product, Pixie’s Bows, was listed as a range of ‘Bows for the hair; Bobby pins; Elastic for tying hair; Hair buttons; Hair clips; Hair extensions; Hair ornaments; Hair pins; Hair ribbons; Hair bands; Ribbons of textile materials; Buttons; Laces (other than leather); Decorative pins for wear (other than jewellery)’.

  The Sweaty Betty staff were enlisted to promote the bows on all of the company’s social media sites and place stories in newspapers, magazines, television and online. The idea was soon an industry. Roxy managed production of the bows; the Sweaty Betty team helped out with orders and distribution. Pixie would serve as the new brand’s model.

  When the bows launched in May 2014, Pixie had 15 000 Instagram followers. Thanks to the promotional campaign engineered by her mother, by Christmas 2014 Pixie’s Instagram account boasted 91 000 followers—the private photographs of Pixie lounging poolside in Italy holding a plastic cocktail glass, boarding private jets and riding in helicopters and pouting hadn’t hurt either.

  She was well on track to realising her mother’s dream for her to be financially secure by the time she left school
. Within a year, Roxy would tell media she had set up a trust fund for her baby.

  ‘Pixie has an account which I opened a week after she was born and anything that she earns goes into that account so when she’s older, she has a good start,’ Roxy told the MailOnline. ‘I’m going to teach her to be smart with her money, as my parents did with me, work hard, earn it but don’t blow it on materialistic things until you have property. If I can help the kids get a head start—fantastic!’

  ‘Pixie will retire at five,’ she told Beauticate website. ‘I will be working until I’m a hundred and fifty-five.’

  Roxy’s marketing of her daughter was not without controversy. Pixie’s Insta-business and growing profile as a paid ‘influencer’ raised red flags. The proliferation of paid influencers on social media was being carefully monitored by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) as the body evaluated whether the burgeoning business contravened legislation designed to protect consumers. By not declaring their paid interests in online endorsements, the new wave of blogger celebrities and social media influencers were potentially lying to consumers about their motivations for recommending products, something prohibited by a relatively new law enacted in 2010.

  Roxy and Pixie had just ridden into what media and marketing industry publisher Tim Burrowes would call the ‘new Wild West’ of marketing. Roxy remained unfussed as the debate raged around her: ‘I don’t see what difference it makes,’ she told The Daily Telegraph when the question of whether her Ministry of Talent personalities should declare paid interests in social media endorsements.

  While the ACCC wrestled with the massive, largely unmonitored industry, Instagram reviewed the toddler’s account and suspended it two months ahead of Pixie’s third birthday. Instagram had received a series of complaints that the account didn’t comply with its terms and conditions requiring users to be at least thirteen years old.

  Roxy was defiant: ‘What a disappointment #Instagram has shut down @pixiecurtis #pixiecurtis Instagram today,’ she posted to Instagram. ‘Pretty incredible that this could happen—and frankly pretty out of order given the harmless nature of our pictures and the smile they brought to many!’

  The following day she would open a new account @pixierosecurtis and use her media influence to publicise it—and her outrage. A week later, after she had written to Instagram personally, the old account was reactivated. Pixie was back in business.

  The controversy didn’t seem to diminish Pixie’s value or reach as an ‘influencer’. Her price to post an endorsement on her Instagram feed by 2015 increased to $550. In her letter to the Supreme Court making her case for her husband’s freedom, Roxy had raised the couple’s ‘privacy concerns’ as an obstacle preventing her from hiring live-in nannies for her children in recent times. Given her preschooler’s massive social media profile and the revelation her new son, Hunter, had an Instagram account within a month of his birth in May 2014, some believed Roxy had missed the irony of the statement regarding her concerns about her privacy.

  Roxy had for years been worried her offices in Beaconsfield were being bugged with listening devices. Former staff would confirm their boss would stand outside on the footpath when making and taking personal calls. ‘It seemed she believed ASIC, as part of their investigations into Oli’s insider trading, had bugged her,’ said one. ‘It went on for a long time.’ It was one of Roxy’s many contradictions.

  A very unpleasant incident colloquially known as ‘Pixie’s sex scandal’ would be another. In February 2016, Daily Telegraph reporters Jonathon Moran and Briana Domjen learned doctored images of Pixie had been circulating in Sydney’s fashion circles. The doctored images showed Pixie in sexual situations. One depicted the 4-year-old superimposed behind a glass box alongside a prostitute in Amsterdam’s red light district. Another depicted the preschooler reading a book that displayed an image of two men having sex. A disturbed Roxy would tell the newspaper she was sickened by the prank, which occurred months earlier in 2015.

  ‘It sickens me to think that grown men, within the same industry, could possibly find any humour in superimposing my four-year-old daughter, or anyone’s child for that matter, into lewd and explicit situations. It is sick and in my eyes, it’s paedophilia,’ she said, confirming the matter had been reported to police for further investigation. She also confirmed that an image of her daughter in a nightie had been lifted from Roxy’s own ‘personal’ Instagram feed.

  Twenty-four hours after the story broke, public sentiment would swing against Roxy—who had stated that three unidentified men in the fashion industry were behind the abhorrent prank. Some were critical of the tall poppy’s decision to conduct a series of media interviews on the back of the revelations concerning the months-old misconduct. One question hung in the public consciousness: Had Roxy inadvertently facilitated the exploitation of her daughter by publishing hundreds of photographs of her on publicly accessible social media?

  Media commentators and child advocates had little sympathy for Roxy, though plenty for Pixie. Dr Katrina Lines of Act for Kids would say social media activity of young children made life easier for paedophiles: ‘Paedophiles these days are very adept at using electronic means of accessing and sharing child pornography and many search for victims online,’ she told online media website The New Daily.

  Victorian parenting expert Kathy Walker from Early Life Foundations denounced Roxy’s social media posts of her child and called them ‘exploitation’. ‘It’s indicative of the narcissistic culture we live in that we feel the need to share every moment of our personal lives, but doing so makes our children more vulnerable,’ she said.

  Roxy, who had participated in national television and radio interviews to talk about the violation of her daughter, reacted by declining further interview requests and switching Pixie’s Instagram account to private—for a week. To her Instagram page she posted her unequivocal response: ‘The more bitter and envious people get—the more it drives me to succeed and work even harder … @pixiecurties #pixiesbows—2016 #preliminarydrawings #myer’. The post accompanied an image showing a Pixie’s Bows display case on a Myer concept board. Roxy was disclosing a plan she had been working on to have Pixie’s Bows stocked in one of the nation’s biggest department stores, but Myer never did stock the range.

  Within weeks, the doors of Westfield’s Bondi Junction shopping mall were postered with huge billboard-sized stickers of Pixie—something Roxy had negotiated. The resolute Roxy refused to concede the ‘sex scandal’ had any detrimental impact on the business she was running on behalf of her daughter—a business selling $25 hair bows and $20 headbands that Roxy believed would set her daughter up for life.

  Roxy resolved to push on. It was not in her nature to admit defeat. If she wanted something badly enough, she could not be discouraged from pursuing it to its conclusion—good or bad.

  A baby and toddler skincare range was still on the drawing board for Pixie and associations with Target, Best & Less, Crocs, Seed Heritage and Pottery Barn had established Pixie’s commercial popularity. One media organisation in the United Kingdom had dubbed her the ‘Princess of Instagram’. Pixie’s star was still on the rise.

  With Roxy’s Instagram-wary husband locked in a correctional facility in Cooma, any retirement plans Roxy spoke of having for Pixie seemed to be under review when she did turn five, on 16 August 2016.

  CHAPTER 8

  A New Brand—‘Roxy’

  I’m a proficient Instagrammer but I’m shit at everything else

  Roxy

  ROXY’S DREAMS OF becoming a reality TV star would finally be realised in 2013 when she joined the cast of the third season of the Nine Network’s The Celebrity Apprentice. After spending half of 2010 shooting the pilot series of The Sweat Shop for Channel Seven and being left disappointed when it didn’t air, Roxy would go to the trouble of sending a highlights reel off to other broadcasters in the hope of landing a spot on another reality show.

  There was no lack of them on televisio
n. She wasn’t a singer so programs like Australia’s Got Talent, The X Factor and The Voice weren’t an option; she couldn’t cook so the proliferation of cooking shows such as MasterChef and My Kitchen Rules held no appeal; and unfortunately for Roxy the failure of a proliferation of semi-scripted programs Being Lara Bingle, The Shire and Brynne: My Bedazzled Life had meant television programmers were shying away from the genre of Australian ‘docusoaps’.

  In the end it was the recommendation from her friend, unsinkable Sydney publicist Max Markson, that managed to persuade television producers at Nine to consider Roxy for The Celebrity Apprentice. Nine execs were initially sceptical. They already had a large number of Sydneysiders in the cast: seven of fourteen spots on the show were already occupied by Sydney identities. Olympian Dawn Fraser, boxer Jeff Fenech, performer Rob Mills, comedy personality Peter Berner, singer Prinnie Stevens, dancer Kym Johnson and public relations executive/media commentator Prue MacSween had all signed on. Did they need an eighth contestant from Sydney and a second PR agent in the mix?

  Rounding out the cast were Olympian Stephanie Rice (from Queensland), AFL legend Dermott Brereton (from Victoria), television personality Peter Everett (from Queensland), rocker Brian Mannix (from Victoria), Olympic athlete John Steffensen (from Western Australia) and former Big Brother entrant Layla Subritzky (from Blackpool via Brisbane).

  It was hoped Roxy would bring the fireworks—and she did. Roxy clashed with members of her own team, Team Supreme, in every episode of the 10-episode season. In the first episode she locked horns with the only other PR executive in the cast, Prue MacSween. MacSween was, after four decades, still a respected force in PR.

  MacSween, who had dealt with every form of media egomaniac through the years, found the younger woman ‘overpowering’. ‘She operates through domination,’ MacSween said, agitated and stressed following the pair’s failed attempts at collaboration. To television audiences, MacSween’s observation looked to be true. Roxy struggled to listen to her Celebrity Apprentice castmates, didn’t delegate well and spoke to her team imperiously—particularly when nominated to manage a project, a consumer event for Tim Tams in Sydney’s Pitt Street Mall.