Stacey: My Story So Far

by Stacey Solomon

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ I said, a bit offended, even though I knew it was true.

  ‘But now you’re like a calm nervous wreck and you’re singing beautifully,’ he continued.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, and I meant it.

  ‘I’m so happy that you sang that song again, because it takes me back to the very first time we met you,’ he said. ‘You surprised me then and you continue to surprise me. You thoroughly, thoroughly deserve your place here tonight.’

  ‘Stacey, it’s just been the most emotional week ever,’ said Dannii, wiping tears from her eyes. ‘I’m very, very proud of you.’

  I was so proud of myself, too. Standing in the middle of the X Factor stage as the results came through, clutching hands with Dannii, I felt so happy, even though I was frowning like crazy.

  ‘The public have voted,’ said Dermot. ‘I’m about to reveal which two acts have received the most votes and are through to the next stage of the X Factor final tomorrow and, of course, which act has received the fewest votes and has finished in third place. That act will be heading home.

  ‘In no particular order, the first act heading through to the next stage of the X Factor final is … Olly!’

  I smiled as I saw Olly jump into the air and shout, ‘Yes!’

  ‘Stacey and Joe, that means one of you is through to the next stage of the final tomorrow night,’ Dermot continued, ‘and one of you has received the fewest votes from the public and is out of the competition. So here it is: in no particular order, the second act through to tomorrow night’s final is … Joe! Congratulations, Joe, you are through to tomorrow night. Thanks so much, Joe.’

  Dermot took my hand and said, ‘All right?’

  ‘Yeah, fine,’ I said. ‘I came third! That’s really good. I’m really proud.’

  ‘It’s been an incredible journey,’ Dannii told Dermot. ‘I’ve made an amazing friend and thank you everybody who supported her from day one. She’s an absolute talent and a star.’ Wow!

  I wasn’t at all disappointed that I hadn’t won. I was the happiest girl in the world. What an achievement! I’d done it all. I was there through the whole thing: beginning, middle and end. And when I came out of it, everybody had a good opinion of me. Not one person had anything horrible to say, so that was just perfect. I’d had the time of my life. I couldn’t have asked for more. I don’t even know if I’d have wanted to win; it didn’t matter anyway, because I felt so thankful to have been there for the final.

  It was my dream to win The X Factor, but my life and soul didn’t depend on it. I’ve got many dreams that I haven’t fulfilled, but it doesn’t mean that I’m unhappy. I don’t want to feel I have to win everything and then be miserable if I don’t. I’d rather just go in and enjoy something. You get what you get and you make the most of it.

  During the competition, I never once looked to see how many votes I’d got. There was no point, in my eyes, because the voting went up and down all the time. Olly told me that he never won a vote, but he still came second. I was never in the bottom two, like Olly was, but I came third. The polls don’t mean anything. You can be really popular for the whole show, then make one mistake in the final and lose.

  The X Factor is a mainstream pop show, so if one week you sang something that wasn’t totally commercial, it could easily affect your vote. You tended to get the most votes when you sang a power ballad. A boy singing a current hit by a girl is always popular as well, partly because it’s a current song and partly because a boy singing a girl’s song is intriguing and appeals to that kind of audience.

  Now it was down to the final two, I really wanted Olly to win, even though we both knew that he wouldn’t. I was crying as I watched the final backstage. ‘Why are you crying?’ someone from the hair team asked me.

  ‘Because I know Olly’s not going to win.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ they said. They obviously sensed it, too.

  Then we all got our phones out and voted for Olly. I love Joe, don’t get me wrong, but I felt upset for Olly. When he didn’t win and everyone ran over to Joe to congratulate him, I thought, What about Olly? He lost. Go over to Olly. Joe’s fine; he won.

  I ran on stage to hug them both, wearing the white Temperley dress I’d saved for the final, in case I got there. I was allowed to keep it afterwards, but not the Gucci belt. That had to go back, unfortunately. I felt sorry for Olly so I gave him a cuddle. ‘You’re in the final, so you’re a winner,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah,’ he agreed, looking downhearted.

  As soon as the show was over, me, Olly, Joe, my sister, my brother and my dad went back to the X Factor house in Hampstead and started gathering up our stuff. My room was such a mess. It was full of all the clothes and girly stuff I’d collected over the ten weeks. We had to stuff everything into black sacks and squeeze them into my dad’s car. We could hardly get them all in because there was so much, but I wouldn’t leave anything behind. All these massage oil companies and nail varnish brands had sent in samples of their goods and I had to keep them all. They were just too good to leave behind.

  Finally the house was clear and we were tidying up. What about the jukeboxes and the Xboxes and the Wii?’ someone said.

  Olly and Joe decided they didn’t want anything, but I was allowed to take the Xboxes and the Wii. It was wicked. I love a good game. I’m a real Xbox, Wii and PlayStation fan. Mario is my favourite. I love everything Mario and I still play it now. It’s really sad.

  So that was it, the end of an era. Mad! I wasn’t upset about leaving the house and The X Factor behind, but on my way home I started to miss Olly. There was suddenly a huge gap in my life. Where is he? I thought. It was horrible. I hated it. I wanted to be near him all the time, because I truly loved our friendship.

  When I got home, Zach was lying in his little bed, sleeping like an angel. Although I knew I was going to miss Olly and the highs and lows of The X Factor, it was so lovely to be back with my little munchkin that I didn’t care about anything else. I shouldn’t have woken him up, but I couldn’t help myself. ‘Missed you, missed you, really want to kiss you!’ I said, kissing him all over. That night, I went to sleep with him in my arms for the first time in ten weeks. It was absolute heaven.

  Chapter 11

  When I woke up, it was as if a spell had been broken and I was back in the outside world again. The only difference was there were paparazzi outside my house and my tour manager was ringing me to go through my schedule. I had been automatically signed to a management agency, along with the other X Factor finalists, so thankfully there was someone to organize and manage my bookings. I started doing interviews and photo shoots immediately and was on the covers of New! and Heat magazines. There were also gigs lined up all over the UK, in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It was all really fun stuff. My job was singing now – how amazing!

  Even though there was a lot to do, it was really refreshing to be home and feel normal again. The X Factor is a hard, strange struggle, and being back with my family felt really good, whether we were cooking, chatting, acting like idiots, peeping out of the window at the photographers outside or doing absolutely nothing. It was lovely to be with my little man, too, and I wanted to spend every minute with him. I relished everything I did with him, even the everyday things, like bathing and feeding him.

  Back with my family, I could relax and be normal. We didn’t talk much about The X Factor or my career prospects. My mum and dad are so proud of me and they would do anything to support me, but we didn’t get too excited about it all, because we knew that the kind of success I was having doesn’t necessarily last long. Nothing lasts, really, so it’s not a good idea to get used to a lifestyle unless you know for certain that you can keep it going. There’s no point getting used to something unless you’re set up and know that you’re going to be where you are for the next ten years. Otherwise, six months later, you could be back where you started after getting everybody excited about something that never happens. I’m not saying my life wasn’t ch
anging; it was, but the important things stayed exactly the same: my son, my family, my friends. I saw a lot of Aaron again, too. We were closer friends than ever. He was definitely my best friend now.

  In the run-up to Christmas, people kept asking me, ‘How does it feel to be famous?’ or ‘Is it a shock to be famous suddenly?’ But even to this day I don’t think of myself as famous. I’m just not. I think you have to be established and around for a really long time before you can call yourself that. All right, some people know who I am, but that doesn’t make me famous, not in my eyes. My dream of fame involves having a really prosperous career, maybe singing a string of hit songs or appearing on a really big TV show. Then I might think, Yeah, I’m famous.

  People like Robbie Williams and Whitney Houston are famous; Holly Willoughby and Dermot O’Leary are big TV presenters, and Halle Berry is a movie star – I’ve just been on a reality TV show. Don’t get me wrong, I loved it and I’m really grateful for the experience, but it doesn’t make me famous.

  A lot of people come out of those shows and get mobbed everywhere they go. When Lloyd Daniels went shopping after X Factor, he was surrounded wherever he went. I don’t get mobbed. Instead, people tend to come up to me and say, ‘Well done. We’re really proud of you.’ Or, ‘I’m so happy you’re doing good.’

  ‘So am I, thank you,’ I say.

  Yes! I think. People like me. It’s the best feeling. There’s no downside to it, like there is to being mobbed or followed. It feels as if the people who like me are people like me: normal, down-to-earth, nice people.

  Of course, it can be a little bit difficult walking through a packed train station, especially if someone says, ‘Can I have a photo?’ because that attracts a lot of attention. But just being in the street or a shopping centre is fine. I can go shopping and people might ask for a photo, but they won’t crowd me. Generally they’re not rude and they leave me alone, unless they see me being followed by photographers. Then they become curious and start following as well, whispering, ‘Who is it? Who is it?’

  About a month after The X Factor finished, me, my dad and Zach were driving into Romford when I realized we were being followed. I sensed it straight away. ‘Dad, I’m being followed,’ I said.

  ‘Calm down and pull over,’ my dad said.

  I went to pull over, but the photographer must have thought we were turning off, so he sped up and went straight into the back of us, with Zach in the car. ‘Oh my God, my baby!’ I yelled. It was so scary.

  It wasn’t a big smash and everything was fine, but he had gone too far and he knew it. People say, ‘You want it; you asked for it.’ And I agree, to an extent, because I would have got out of the car and done photos – I wasn’t trying to get away from it – but some photographers have got something wrong with them. I think you’ve got to be a bit nuts to do that job.

  The photographer looked really shaken as he apologized. ‘Look, you could have just stopped and asked for the photo,’ I said. ‘You didn’t have to go mental.’ He apologized again, swapped insurance details and then drove off without taking a single photo.

  The photographers mostly wanted pictures of what I was wearing, I think. And it didn’t matter what I wore; the paper would shape some rubbish story around it and say it was the best outfit ever. If I wore my jogging bottoms or my tracksuit, the caption would read, ‘Look at Stacey’s winter wonderland tracksuit!’ It was always flattering, even though sometimes they must have thought, Oh God, that tracksuit again. We can’t put that in there again.

  The only person who sold a story on me was a boy from Ohio, who I’d met when I was out there on the theatre exchange programme with my college. He said that I’d kissed him. Big deal. Anyway, we had a really good laugh, but I didn’t kiss him. I didn’t kiss anybody on that trip. There was a picture of us in a hot tub, but everybody in that part of Ohio had a hot tub in their garden. Oh well, I thought when it came out. That’s a good one!

  My first photo shoot was for New!, and it was so good, because I did it with Zachary. It was me, Zach and a Christmas tree in a studio. I was in a red dress and Zach was dressed as a little elf. It was so much fun. Zach was blown away by the snow and the huge presents. ‘Wow!’ he said. ‘Wow, Mummy!’ He was really impressed, even though they were only empty boxes and bits of white paper. I loved it, too, because somebody did my hair and make-up and I got to choose the photos I liked. They weren’t allowed to use the ones I didn’t like. Yes!

  It was so cool, with a proper set and good lighting. I was really nervous. I remember thinking, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to look nice for photos. I just smiled the whole time. I wasn’t very good at putting on those pretty, moody expressions that some people do so well. I think I’m better at it now, but in my first photo shoots I got my gums right out, because I didn’t know what else to do.

  My first gig was at G-A-Y on the Saturday after I left the house, and it was wicked. I sang, ‘The Scientist’, ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’, ‘Son Of A Preacher Man’, ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’ and ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’. I love singing songs I can relate to. The lyrics have to mean something to me, then I can pretend to be in the song. I like it when I’m singing and I think, That’s me. I’m singing about myself.

  I love performing at G-A-Y, because there’s always such a good atmosphere there. At a straight club, somebody always gets angry and wants a fight, but that never seems to happens at gay clubs. You couldn’t get a less moody place. The clubbers all seem happy and lively, and everyone loves everyone. It’s so much better. I love camp humour, too – it’s clever and a little bit catty, but in a nice way.

  It’s funny, because the Gay Times always want to do pieces on me. They think I have a big gay following, but I don’t know. If I do, I think it’s because the way I talk is a little bit camp and I act a little bit gay, if that makes sense. I mean, gay from a boy’s perspective, not from a girl’s.

  For my G-A-Y performance, I decided to wear the beautiful white Temperley dress I’d worn for two minutes on The X Factor when I was congratulating the winners. I was planning to wear it with some really high shoes. ‘You should wear your pink Lacoste wellies instead!’ Jeremy Joseph, the promoter, joked.

  ‘I’ll put them on again when I get back in the car,’ I said.

  ‘Have you got them with you, then?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, they’re my comfies,’ I said.

  ‘Then you’ve got to wear them on stage,’ he urged. ‘Go on!’

  In the end he persuaded me to wear them on stage and I did the whole performance in my comfy old wellies! I wasn’t nervous, I was excited. I knew the crowd had come to see me, so I felt supported. Everyone was cheering so loudly, it was amazing. I loved every minute of it. I was buzzing when I came off stage.

  It was only after I left The X Factor that I remembered what it was like to sing for fun again. It so different when there’s no pressure; it’s another atmosphere altogether when you’re not being told that you could be voted out of the competition at any minute. On the show, I found it hard to pretend that I was having a load of fun and everything was fine. But you can’t help having a good time when you’re singing to people who’ve come to see you and everyone’s enjoying themselves. It all meant too much on the show, whereas now I could just have a laugh.

  I was a better singer, too. No one can train you to sing, but they can help you with your technique. Being on The X Factor had taught me how to stand properly and how to breathe properly. It didn’t change the way I sang, because everyone has their own style of singing and you can’t do much about that, although you can imitate someone else’s style, using your palate and oesophagus to adjust your voice. If you think about it, some people speak from the chest, others through their nose, so you can always change the way you speak and sing. But at the end of the day, you are what you are. On The X Factor, they don’t want to change you too much; they just teach you some techniques. So if you want to hold a note a little bit longer, or go higher or lo
wer than you usually would without it affecting your voice and style, they show you how.

  It’s easy to sing if you’re relaxed. If you’re comfortable with your song and confident that you can sing it technically – if it’s not too high or too low, too long or too short – then it’s a piece of pie to lose yourself in the song and connect with the words. But if there’s a part of it you can’t get right, or a note you think is a bit too high, or too long, you will constantly be thinking about how long that note is, or how high you’re going to have to go, and you’ll never be properly in the song.

  My Christmas break began a couple of days after the G-A-Y gig. I was so pleased to have a few weeks to devote to Zach and I wanted to spend lots of time at home over the holiday. Our Christmas was really nice and quiet, just the same as usual, except that Dannii Minogue gave me a massive silver bag – made by the same people who make Mulberry bags – full of make-up: Nars, Mac, Chanel, everything. It was the best Christmas present in the world.

  I wrapped up some of the free stuff I’d come home with from the X Factor house to give to my friends and family as Christmas presents. It wasn’t like I suddenly had loads of money to take everyone on holiday or buy expensive presents, because you don’t get paid to go on The X Factor.

  I knew what I wanted to do with my money when I did finally earn some, though: move out of my mum’s house. If I didn’t have Zach, I’d be happy to stay with my mum all my life, but ever since I’d had him, I’ve wanted him to have a house he could call his, not always be saying, ‘Nana’s house’ or ‘Grandad’s house’ or ‘Aaron’s house’.

  I definitely didn’t dream about buying a mansion. I didn’t want a mortgage I wouldn’t be able to pay five years down the line and I didn’t need fifty rooms to dust every day! I don’t see the point in living to excess. It’s all right if you want to go on a fantastic holiday or buy something nice once in a while, but I think it’s crazy and selfish to throw money around needlessly. I’d feel guilty if I did that. What about everyone else in the world? I’d think.