Will.i.am

by Danny White

  As the war of words continued via the Internet, the media followed the story closely. To clarify the issue at the heart of the dispute, Will stated to Hilton: ‘I didn’t hit you. I told you that I didn’t like the fact that you disrespected us. It’s cool to have your opinion.’

  Hilton, in turn, denied that, saying: ‘I would never make something like this up, or try to use something like this for press, because I don’t need it.’ This reflected the widespread allegation that, in taking to the internet to complain rather than contacting law-enforcement authorities, Hilton had been more interested in attention. ‘I called the police BEFORE I Tweeted about it,’ Hilton responded. ‘They were not showing up. I felt helpless.’

  As the media and public became ever more entertained by the controversy, American broadcaster Ryan Seacrest involved himself in the dispute, inviting both parties on to his radio show to give their sides of the story and clear it up. He tweeted: ‘I am sorting thru this drama with perez and will.i.am! Have u heard? Perez need u to call radio show to clear this up. Will caall radio show [sic].’

  There was plenty of sympathy for Will in the wake of the incident. Hilton’s blog had been bitchy about so many celebrities over the years that some people felt he was due a bit of payback. The nature of this genre of blogging – criticism made from the safety of the computer keyboard – had enraged plenty. Kelly Clarkson, the original winner of American Idol, for instance, stated on Astral Radio, Toronto that she felt no sympathy for Hilton. ‘You’re mean to children! No one’s going to pity you,’ she said. ‘I do not think violence is the answer, but what do you expect? I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already. I’m thinking how much did will.i.am pay his manager to do that?’ The musician John Mayer also attacked Hilton and his handling of the episode. Others made more measured statements. Kate Dailey, writing on the Daily Beast website, described Hilton as ‘a churlish gadfly’, and noted that he had ridiculed people on his blog for years. However, she felt this did not justify violence: ‘Did he deserve a beating? No: no one does.’

  Hilton eventually filed a lawsuit alleging battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress and sought unspecified damages in excess of $25,000, but the assault charge against Molina was dropped after the manager issued a written apology to the blogger in November. ‘I apologize for what I did on June 22 of 2009, even though you engaged in highly offensive comments,’ read the statement. ‘I acknowledge that these kinds of issues should not be resolved through a physical response.’

  As part of the agreement, Molina also agreed not to contact Hilton except through his lawyer, not to carry any weapons for twelve months and not to come within 100 yards of the nightclub where the dispute took place. He was also obliged to donate $500 to a charity. The final word on the saga goes to Molina himself, who said: ‘I think everything that needed to be said has pretty much been said. Yes, I do regret the whole night.’

  *

  If the Hilton episode had shaken Will during the latter months of 2009, he would have further tests ahead of him. None would affect his band, though. Lest we lose sight of this, 2010 was a significant year for The Black Eyed Peas. In terms of record sales they broke further records, the band was nominated for six Grammy awards, of which they won three: Best Pop Vocal Album, Best Performance by a Duo or Group and Best Video. A month after landing those gongs, they performed a surprise concert in Times Square.

  Some of the concerts they performed around the world during that year were enormous. For instance, in Canada they performed at the Festival d’été de Québec. Held at the Plains of Abraham, the event attracted a crowd of 120,000 fans. The enormous audience made for a stunning sight for Will and the band. Taboo felt as if the atmosphere of the evening created an ‘eighth wonder of the world’. These were heady times for them all.

  They released their sixth studio album, The Beginning. It was more frivolously themed than The E.N.D. had been, and all the better for it as far as many listeners were concerned. It’s lead single, ‘The Time (Dirty Bit)’ was released in November and became the band’s ninth Top 10 hit in America. Several critics slammed the album, with The New York Times declaring it ‘a much lesser record than The E.N.D.’, the Chicago Times declaring its tracks ‘dull’, and revealing of the band’s ‘limitations’. The Guardian, though, said ‘most of the songs hit the mark’, and gave it three out of five stars. Will preferred to concentrate on the album’s substantial sales, which quickly passed the three million mark. Describing the album’s overall style, he told The New York Times, it was an electro album, adding: ‘Electro is today’s disco – making electronic music not for the sake of selling it but for sharing it and touring around the world DJing.’ By now, album releases from the band had become major moments in the pop-culture calendar.

  Another highlight of the year came in South Africa, where they played at the opening ceremony concert for the football World Cup finals. Over two billion people around the world watched the show on television. ‘I Gotta Feeling’ had rarely felt more relevant to its surroundings as the multi-racial and multi-national crowd in the stadium jumped and danced to the song, which became an apt soundtrack to the tournament’s home: post-apartheid South Africa.

  Will continued to campaign for racial equality wherever he travelled. He also encouraged others to take up their own mantles, as when he helped jolly Taboo into speaking out against fresh immigration laws passed in Arizona. With Latinos a prime target of the law’s enforcers, Taboo was the right man to take a stand against the laws. It just needed another of those famous Will pep talks to seal the deal. ‘Ask yourself this, Tab: look in the mirror and ask yourself, “Do you look illegal?”,’ was how Will put it. Taboo said he ‘had never felt so moved to do something’ as he did after that conversation. He would record a song that put into words and music how he felt.

  Alongside him as he made the song would be two of Cheryl Cole’s backing singers. That was the most tangible impact Cole made on Taboo’s career. Her impact on Will’s was, and continues to be, far more significant. Thanks to his professional relationship with her, Will had some choppy waters ahead.

  6 The Cole Factor

  She is one of the most talked about British female celebrities of the last ten years, often described as ‘the nation’s sweetheart’, and yet a woman who has been convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm following a scrap in a nightclub toilet. Her combination of glamour and heartache, triumph and disaster makes Cheryl Cole’s story irresistible. In recent years, her career and life have become increasingly entwined with those of Will. He was first drawn to work with her not, as some might assume, due to her stunning good looks, but for a rather less discussed aspect of Cole: ‘Her personality,’ he told ES magazine, going on to describe her as, ‘Charming, approachable, adorable, sweet, broken, fragile, strong.’ As for Cheryl, she was in turn drawn to Will as a manager by his mind. ‘He’s a genius,’ she says. ‘He has a genius mind’.

  Some commentators have attempted to conjure a romantic dimension to Will’s relationship with Cole. However, the truth is far more fascinating than that. Indeed, his management of and relationship with Cheryl Cole makes for one of the most controversial chapters of his career to date. Apart from rumours of romance, he has both been lauded as the mastermind behind Cole’s every success and blamed as the cause of her every failure. It is in his involvement with her that we see the substantial powers that are ascribed to Will by both his fans and critics: few people, it seems, think that Will is a moderate or mediocre force. Rather, he is always cast as a force of nature, causing either triumph or disaster. The truth of the matter is rather more complicated and ambiguous than that.

  We start the story with just such an effusive statement, made by Cole herself. The former Girls Aloud star credits Will with the very fact that she has a solo career at all. As ever, Will’s positive, encouraging nature rings true. ‘It was actually him that convinced me to do a solo record,’ she told the Popjustice website. ‘I never would have don
e a solo record without him. At the time, I would have had a family. At the time, I was still married! But it was actually Will saying to us, “You know you’re going to do a solo record, right?”, and I was saying, “I don’t want to, not yet”.’

  However, Will won the day and encouraged her to do it. He then went a step further, asking if he could work with her on it. ‘I think you should – you need to,’ he told Cole. ‘I’m excited. I want to be involved with it.’

  Cole was first drawn to the idea of working with Will when she saw him interviewed on television. He was asked which UK artists he would most like to work with and replied: ‘Cheryl Cole and U2’. Cole was touched, but also amused by his interest. ‘I did have a little chuckle to me’self,’ she recalled later.

  So Cole took little convincing to get Will on board for her solo material. He took part in her debut album, 3 Words, which was released in October 2009. Will was the executive producer and also contributed backing vocals to four songs. These included the album’s titular opener, the writing of which he had also been involved in. The album was recorded in California, New York and London.

  Will found that working with Cole was ‘like working with somebody who I’ve known for a long time’. Asked to sum up what she was like in the studio, he said: ‘She’s not just a great singer and a beautiful woman, but a very talented writer – a great lyricist’. For Cole, all too often dismissed as merely a glamorous woman whose looks are almost solely responsible for her success, these words were most encouraging. This was what she had waited so long to hear.

  An insight was offered into their working relationship when they were interviewed together on a one-off UK chat show devoted to her in the winter of 2009. Cole recalled how she was ‘Flattered, extremely flattered, that he even knew who I was,’ when they decided to work together. She said that ‘Will’s gentle persuasion’ had ‘pushed me over the edge’ in her decision to go solo. However, when she first entered the studio to work with Will, she was, she admitted, ‘terrified’.

  Will’s first task for Cole was a lyrical one. He played her the music to the tune ‘Heaven’, and told her to go home and write some lyrics for it. Cole found the experience extremely nerve-wracking, but suspected Will was not aware of that. He corrected her, telling her he was aware of her anxiety. Indeed, back in the studio, when he noted her frame of mind he began to prepare himself for the lyrics to be poor. So, when she began to sing them, he said: ‘Wow! There’s no reason to be shy – that’s the bomb!’ One can almost sense the positive, encouraging energy that Will must have created in the studio.

  It was positive energy that was reflected in the album’s reception and chart progress. Many critics lavished the album with praise, and it debuted at number one in the UK album charts. Attitude magazine concluded that Will had hit the nail on the head with his work with Cole’s solo debut, calling it: ‘Very hip, very now and ultimately very Cheryl’.

  Will’s professional relationship with Cole deepened the following year, when he invited her to join The Black Eyed Peas tour. She impressed the band members, who were taken aback by her beauty and her down-to-earth, Geordie attitude to her celebrity. It is hard, after all, to imagine a woman of such glamour managing to maintain such an everyday approach to life were she, say, Californian.

  At the end of her warm-up set on the first date in Dublin, Will rapped: ‘Cheryl Cole’s so sexy’. He and Cole were becoming increasingly inseparable, prompting his Black Eyed Peas bandmates to tease him onstage about their relationship, singing: ‘Will and Cheryl sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g’. In truth, this was just a bit of banter. The fans mostly realized this, but the rumourmongers of the World Wide Web, not to mention the ladies and gentlemen of the mainstream media, were less in on the joke. They therefore read more into it than was intended, all of which made for more fascination.

  *

  The next chapter of Will’s professional relationship with Cole followed the conclusion of her time on The Black Eyed Peas tour. Cole invited Will to appear alongside her in the judges’ houses phase of the 2010 UK X Factor series. He did not take long to decide he would accept the invitation. However, initially, his management team was less than thrilled, complaining that it would be impossible to fit such a commitment into Will’s schedule.

  ‘What you talking about my schedule for?’ Will asked them. ‘Just put it in the schedule!’ This would give Will a foot in the door of reality-television contests – a genre responsible for a significant slice of the pop world’s turnover – as well as bringing his personal fame to a whole new audience.

  For the show, he was a welcome addition. Past judges’ houses assistants included 1980s pop star Sinitta, Westlife’s least popular member Kian Egan, and other, even less famous ‘stars’. Will would, at this stage, constitute one of the series’ biggest ‘assistant’ names to date, paving the way for the likes of Kylie Minogue and Robbie Williams to follow in his footsteps.

  As Will prepared for The X Factor experience he had mixed feelings. He was looking forward immensely to working with Cole and to witnessing the performance of the remaining contestants in her girls category. He did not fear that they would disagree much, as he believed that Cole, ‘unlike a lot of artists has an ear ... and a nose’. So there was plenty of positivity to anticipate.

  At the same time, though, Will felt troubled to be stepping inside the circus. As one who had based his career on a principle of encouragement, positive energy and kindness, he felt uncomfortable with some of the rougher edges of The X Factor. Clearly, the catty remarks of Simon Cowell were not ones that Will would feel well disposed towards. However, his misgivings went both wider and deeper than that. He felt ill at ease with the very nature of a process that played with the emotions of aspiring artists purely to make breathtaking television. As he stepped into Simon Cowell’s world, Will vowed to himself that he would be as true to his beliefs as he could be.

  In the past, the judges’ houses phase of the contest had been held at locations as glamorous as Australia, California and Barcelona. Cole had chosen somewhere closer to home: Coworth Park in Ascot, Berkshire. After Cole had been unveiled as their mentor, the girls were excited to discover who would be her famous assistant. After the customary dramatic pause, Cole said: ‘It’s Mr will.i.am’. As the contestants jumped, applauded and screamed, Will sauntered down the stairs in his usual cool style and said: ‘What’s up, girls?’

  Once the performances began, Will noticed that there were, in fact, two performances going on at any given time. One was the singing of the song itself, the second was the performance of, ‘Oh, look at me! I’m going to be on TV’. This aspect of the show fascinated him but did not make him any the more enamoured by the genre.

  No contestant epitomized this dichotomy more than Katie Waissel. The polarizing drama queen of the entire series, Waissel broke down during her rendition of ‘Smile’, and generally milked the entire audition for as much attention and theatre as she could get. Will, though, defended her to Cole. ‘She seems good’, he said. Of Gamu Nhengu, another controversial contestant, he said ‘nice tone’. Cher Lloyd, like Waissel, had to interrupt her performance with a tearful breakdown. Will sat uncomfortably as Cole comforted Lloyd. Little could he have known, at this stage, that Lloyd, who also messed-up her second crack at the song, would make it through to the final, where she would duet with him. ‘Wow’, he said after Lloyd’s tearful, despairing exit. He tried to remind himself that the girl he had just seen in such torment was ‘sixteen years old’. His serious and deflated air was palpable. Had his fears about the format been realized?

  After the auditions had taken place, Will looked back over the experience. ‘It was cool, you know, it was harder than it looked,’ he told The X Factor website. ‘Cos every single one of the girls were great singers.’ This created a difficult situation for Will as he advised Cole which of the acts to put through to the live shows, and which to send home. He felt that – whatever the choices Cole and he had made – they would be cr
iticized by those watching at home. ‘It’s hard, you know – being judged for judging.’ He added, though, that the decision was eased because ‘you just can’t ignore magic dust’. Cole added that Will’s advice had been ‘vital’. She said that she ‘trusted his instinct ... above my own’.

  However, for seasoned observers of Will it seemed that all was not quite well. The normally talkative and energetic man was replaced by one lacking ‘fizz’, a man who seemed almost perplexed and deflated by the experience. It was hard to imagine at this stage that Will would soon be representing Cole as she herself was sucked further into the X Factor universe, only to be embarrassingly spat out.

  That episode took place over the Atlantic, where Simon Cowell was fulfilling a longstanding dream by leaving his place as a judge on Simon Fuller’s American Idol, in order to launch his own X Factor franchise in the States. For Cowell, this was the biggest risk of his television career to date. His already notoriously obsessive attention to detail would be tightened all the more. For him, getting the judging panel right for the show was absolutely vital.

  It is Simon Cowell’s belief that The X Factor is more about the drama of the judges than it is about the contestants. So he wanted the perfect chemistry on the panel. Which is how Will became embroiled in the hullabaloo, over Cowell’s invitation to Cole to be one of his fellow judges in America.

  Having accepted the role, as Cole prepared to move to the States, Will joined her new management team. Cole arrived in America in May 2011. She was welcomed by Will and he reportedly threw a party to introduce her to some of his key contacts. By August, having tired of life in hotels, Cole was reported to have moved into Will’s home in Hollywood. By this time it was already clear that she was not entirely comfortable in the US.