The Beat of My Own Drum

by Sheila E.

  While touring in Chile, someone offered us a helicopter ride. “Hell, yes!” was my response. “Fly over the beach!” But the chopper went into free fall, and my stomach ended up in my throat. The band was all screaming and yelling. We flew over the venue at the Vinca del Mar Festival we were playing in, but then we got lost as the fog rolled in. The pilot had instruments, but he didn’t speak English very well, and we were terrified as we watched him guessing in broken English where to land. Another time we visited the Olympic equestrian team and went horseback riding, and I just took off. Everyone panicked because they thought my horse was out of control, but it wasn’t—I was.

  Someone else took us parasailing, and I told them to let me out as far as they could. I went up so high I couldn’t even discern the motor of the boat anymore—all I could hear was silence and my own heartbeat. That completely freaked me out, and I waved at them to get me down.

  All my life I’d never heard silence like that—there was always a tone of the world, always something—and it didn’t sit well with me. That surprised and scared me a little, because I’d thought I wanted silence. I was beginning to find the constant throng of people and demands way too noisy. There was no time to be on my own, and there was never any peace. We didn’t stop, and the madness of the life we were leading almost began to feel normal.

  The loneliness of never being alone started to get to me.

  I could never seem to find a quiet place for myself. I’d grown up in a house full of noise and should have been used to it, but my life was different then.

  Even more confusing was the growing feeling that I could have anything I wanted, whenever I wanted it. People were buying my music in droves, and my fans really did love me and my work. They were singing along to songs I’d written, and that seemed crazy to me. Sleep deprivation didn’t help. Nor did the intensity of being in a full-on relationship with someone I was not only working with every day but who was constantly surrounded by people, especially other women.

  After a while, I started to become paranoid that I could no longer do things by myself. Fearing that I was close to losing my mind, I asked Connie and Karen to join me and found them jobs as assistant tour managers. It felt so good to have my friends around me, and they helped me enormously. They were surprised by how quickly I’d gone from being the tough Sheila they’d always known to being a semi-helpless celebrity.

  We were in New York doing a movie shoot one day when I admitted to them that I didn’t feel I could even walk down the street on my own anymore.

  “That’s crazy!” said Connie. “Right now, Sheila, you are going to walk to the corner of the block by yourself, go into that deli over there, sit down, and eat a meal by yourself.”

  I swallowed my shock and shook my head vehemently. “No way!” I said. Then, in a tiny whisper, “I can’t.”

  Karen took my hand. “You can. You have to learn to be by yourself again, okay?”

  I felt naked and vulnerable without security and was afraid everyone was looking at me. I couldn’t believe how scared I was to do the most normal thing in the world. But I was grateful to have my good friends support me and give me some tough love.

  Connie and Karen remained several paces behind me as I put one foot in front of the other and headed toward the deli.

  “Table for one, please,” I stammered. I was so embarrassed as I sat down. Did I look stupid in a restaurant all by myself? I was so out of touch with reality that I’d forgotten that eating alone was perfectly normal.

  My girlfriends followed me in and sat at a table on the other side of the room. I kept looking over at them longingly, but they deliberately ignored me. It took all the strength I had to sit there and try to eat a little something. I don’t think anyone really recognized me, but I felt like everyone did. I thought they were all whispering about me behind my back. I couldn’t stop thinking about what people thought of me. It was insane.

  The girls made me do that kind of simple task a few more times until I began to feel more comfortable in my own skin. It was like exposure therapy. Their leveling presence also made me painfully aware that by being surrounded by people whose only job was to say yes to whatever I wanted, I was at risk of becoming an egotistical monster.

  In an environment where everybody led me to believe there were no limits, I only had to ask to get what I wanted. If I wanted my sticks to light up when I played them, I could have it. If I wanted two two-thousand-dollar outfits for every show, that was fine too. The response was always “Sure!” or “No problem! We’ll get that sorted for you.”

  The sky was the limit—I could have anything I wanted—and, in that environment, I became increasingly impatient for that “anything” to come to me now. In my extreme moments of delusion, when they told me that the fabric I wanted for a coat was French, I’d say something like, “Well, then fly to Paris and get it for me!”

  I became mean, demanding, and angry. I stopped asking and started telling. I began to see my team as a group of people working for me, rather than as individuals who worked with me. I didn’t give them the acknowledgment and appreciation they deserved. I didn’t say “please” and “thank you.” I was becoming a nightmare.

  In turning into a diva, I was a million miles away from the Sheila Escovedo my parents had raised me to be—the kid who bought her Christmas gifts at the ninety-nine-cent store and needed nothing but a trash can and a few spatulas to make some satisfying beats. I take full responsibility for becoming this person, and when I began to do some soul-searching, I realized I had a lot of apologizing to do.

  I’m still apologizing. I think that, for the most part, my diva ways are a thing of the past. However, my experience in an elevator relatively recently taught me I still might have a ways to go.

  I was with a guitar player I hadn’t seen for a while, and we were in a five-star hotel. Dodging paparazzi when we got out of our limo, we eventually made it to the elevator breathlessly, but then stood there for a minute or so before I realized that it wasn’t moving. I looked at him.

  “Is it broken?”

  “I was just wondering the same thing,” he said. “Why aren’t we moving?”

  We looked to the floor buttons. None were lit up.

  Then we looked at each other.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “You didn’t push the button.”

  “You didn’t, either?” he asked.

  We suddenly cracked up, realizing that we were both so used to having assistants or security push the elevator buttons that neither of us had even thought of doing it ourselves.

  “Which one of us is going to press it?” he asked.

  “Which floor?” I asked.

  “Penthouse.”

  “But of course.” I leaned in to press the button. “I got this.”

  Fortunately, when fame struck and then threatened to spoil me, I always had my friends and family to keep me grounded. They knew how to make me remember who Sheila Escovedo was, even as Sheila E’s star was on the rise. When I flew back to LA one day midtour, Moms came to meet me. I walked through the airport looking every bit the star, taking my Glamorous Life role a bit too seriously—flanked by security, wearing a fur coat, sunglasses, and in head-to-toe couture.

  That’s when I spotted a crazy lady running toward me shouting, “I’m Sheila E’s mama! I’m Sheila E’s mama!” Moms was dressed in red onesie pajamas with the back flap open, multiple Pippi Longstocking braids sticking out of her head, and a blacked-out front tooth. She had a sign taped to her behind that said, I’M SHEILA E’S MOTHER in big black ink. She was jumping up and down with bells on her ankles so everyone could hear, laughing and waving for all to see—including the press. Zina was running alongside her, laughing so hard I thought she’d fall over.

  Welcome home, Sheila. Back to The Goofy Life.

  The trouble was, no matter how normal my life away from Prince was, I was madly, crazily in love with the guy who had shown me what it was like to live in that kind of rarefied world.

&
nbsp; On tour all of the girls had hooked up with someone, and Connie started dating one of the security guards, Gilbert. None of us had any inkling back then, but it was the love of a lifetime for Connie and Gilbert, and they ended up with six kids—my godchildren. Connie and Gilbert’s relationship was surely one of the best things ever to come out of Purple Rain.

  When the tour finally ended (with plans for the next already in hand) and I returned to LA to recover from the madness, I didn’t have anywhere to call home. Connie and I had given up our apartment because we were never there, so my life was packed in boxes. Luckily, I had plenty of friends and stayed in close touch with Lionel Richie and his wife, Brenda.

  She and Lionel had been teasing me over the fact that I didn’t have my own place, and she suggested I move into one of the empty wings of their house in Bel Air. I wasn’t sure at first—it was very different from what I was used to, but at least my months in fancy hotel rooms had prepared me a little. In the end, though, I thought it would be fun. I hated being on my own and was used to being surrounded by a lot of people.

  Taking me in meant taking in my family, too, of course, as we were virtually inseparable. Not that Brenda and Lionel minded one bit. They had tried without success to have children of their own, so they loved having a big family around. The Escovedo entourage generally included my whole family along with Connie and Karen, with her two-year-old daughter, Nicole, my adorable niece—known to everyone as Nikki.

  Although Karen and Peter Michael weren’t together anymore, they were still a big part of our lives—not least because of their much-loved daughter.

  Brenda adored Nikki, too, and suggested that my niece stay with them whenever Karen was on tour with me. She insisted it made sense. She provided her with a beautiful bedroom and showered her with toys and clothes. She even bought her a puppy.

  As a single working mom, Karen was extremely grateful, but very torn.

  Brenda enrolled Nikki at a local primary school, where she was getting a great education. She had everything she could possibly need. Peter Michael (who’d married someone else) visited whenever he had breaks from his music career too. If Nikki stayed where she was, rent-free, then Karen could earn enough for their future without disrupting her child’s life. It seemed like letting Nicole stay there was in her best interests.

  Things changed, though, once I moved away to Minneapolis to work and rehearse for the next big tour. Nicole stayed in her pretty pink bedroom and Karen kept visiting. When Brenda started to talk about adopting Nicole, Karen didn’t know what to do. Lionel, who was Nicole’s official guardian, would do anything to keep Brenda happy. In the end, the Richies convinced Karen and Peter Michael that they could give Nicole the kind of life her birth parents never could. They told us that we would all be in her life as much as before, and they acknowledged that we were always her family.

  The heartbreaking part is that once Nicole Escovedo legally became Nicole Richie, it felt like we lost her. We all lost her—me, Karen, Peter Michael, Patrice, Moms and Pops, Juan, and Zina.

  People have lots of questions about Nicole. There’s been a ton of false and upsetting information put out there by the media from completely inaccurate sources surrounding Nicole’s early life and the circumstances around her open adoption. While there are many more things I could share from my personal perspective, out of respect for Nicole and others in the family, as well as out of respect for the Richies, I have to emphasize that the rest of the story isn’t mine to tell in a public forum.

  I can, however, share this. She’s my niece, whom I love to pieces. She’s my brother Peter Michael’s biological daughter. Her mother was and is a good friend. Lionel and Brenda Richie adopted her and gave her a life full of love and great privilege. She was a precious little girl and has grown up to be a remarkably intelligent, talented, creative, funny, and beautiful young woman. All of the Escovedos love her madly and always will.

  The rest, as I say, is not my story to tell.

  24. Drum Break

  An instrumental or percussion section or interlude during a song

  You don’t have to send me flowers like you used to,

  You don’t have to buy me candy, I’ll still be your fool

  All I ask for is a little decency and class

  “NEXT TIME WIPE THE LIPSTICK OFF YOUR COLLAR”

  SHEILA E

  There was no jumping off the juggernaut that was Prince’s life. In 1987, the industry rumors were confirmed when he officially separated from the Revolution and promoted me to the role of band drummer for his next tour, Sign of the Times, which was due to begin that spring.

  Being Prince’s drummer was a position I’d hold for two crazy years during another of his most intense and creative phases. As well as writing and playing music on his next album, I was asked to contribute to the songs of his latest protégé band, Madhouse, and be the musical director of his backup band, the New Power Generation.

  Sign of the Times was a double album on which I collaborated with him on a number of songs, at the same time releasing singles and videos from my third album. My single “Hold Me” did well on the Billboard charts and continued to improve my reputation as a solo artist.

  My hunger for the work wasn’t purely creative. When I came off the Purple Rain tour, I believed that I’d be rich. I’d been working flat out for well over a year on the biggest tour in the world. I never did it for the money—that was never what had motivated me—but it was comforting to think that I could maybe find myself a nice house and really fill the family fridge.

  So it came as the most dreadful, terrible shock when Prince’s account managers told me that I was a million dollars in debt. “You owe us a lot of money, Sheila,” they said. “How do you want to start paying us back?”

  I was shattered.

  It turns out that every time people told me, “Sure, we’ll fix that for you,” my account had been charged. I’d been so naïve. I thought all the expenses for costumes and hair, equipment and staff would be covered by Prince and his team as part of the tour—as they had been on my previous tours with Lionel and Marvin.

  I had no idea I was expected to pay for it all myself.

  Prince’s managers were my managers, and yet nobody had advised me separately. I bear full responsibility for the bills I incurred, but I have to say it hurt to think that neither Prince nor his team came off that tour in debt, as I did.

  When I went through the final accounts for equipment, wardrobe, hairstylists, flights, food, and drink, I realized that they’d made me pay for everything. They even charged me to use sound equipment that was already there.

  I felt like such a fool.

  As with all big music events (and I’d seen it with Marvin Gaye especially), there was a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes that I didn’t understand or want to know about. I never worried about it because I didn’t think it related to me. Now I realized that some of it did.

  There was no escaping the truth—I owed the money, and that was that. I was still signed to Prince’s management company and to Warner Brothers. He had casually told me at the start that it would be easier to go in with him. It never even occurred to me that I shouldn’t, or that there might be a conflict of interest. I didn’t even ask anyone to study the paperwork for me.

  Not checking the small print was a salutary lesson for me, and one I paid dearly for. I spent years paying back what I owed. This meant that—whether I wanted to or not—I’d have to carry on working at that level and that pace for some time to come.

  Creatively and personally, that was a bitter pill to swallow.

  People are surprised to learn that I’m not what they would consider “wealthy,” even though I am rich in other ways. What is rich? In truth, I have turned down more than I’ve made. In the early nineties, I was approached to participate in a TV infomercial about psychics. I declined, explaining that I didn’t believe in their product. They assured me that that part didn’t matter. They just needed my name, offering half
a million up front and another half a million once they filmed the ad. It was still easy to say no.

  All money is not good money.

  “You know,” I told them, “if you guys wanted me to endorse Tupperware, I would’ve taken the check, no problem. I believe in Tupperware. It keeps my food fresh. And me and my mom are big on leftovers. But I don’t believe that you’re offering something valuable. So thanks, but no thanks.”

  I called Moms and Pops immediately.

  “I just turned down a million dollars,” I told them.

  “You what?” they asked.

  “I don’t believe in the product they wanted me to sell.”

  “Well, can’t you believe in it just a little bit?”

  It took a minute, but once I really explained where I was coming from, they were proud of my conviction. I never would’ve imagined that turning down a million dollars in an instant would be such an easy choice.

  I guess that for me, chasing the light of stardom was never that important. And chasing the money wasn’t, either. I think at times I got off course, rerouted a bit. Fame can be intoxicating, and it’s easy to misplace your moral compass. I definitely made some mistakes along the way and had to learn some valuable lessons about maintaining my personal values. But ultimately, when it came to the big decisions, it was always more important for me to maintain my integrity. I can’t bear the thought of doing something I don’t believe in. Whatever decision I make, I want to be able to sleep at night.

  I was also offered a lot of money to pose naked for Playboy and quickly turned it down. The offer made sense, given that I was being paid to be half-naked onstage every night. So what was the difference? It’s a question I’m still asking myself.