PRECIOUS WILLIAMS

Precious Williams/Hay Festival

WHY I *AM* MY HAIR….

India Arie says ‘I am not my hair….‘

I disagree with her.  I am my hair. Of course my hair (dreadlocks these days) is not all that I am. But it is all that I have chosen it to be.   Hair’s one of the few physical characteristics we have control over.  Everything we do to our hair is a choice. We can (fairly easily) change its texture (temporarily), style, length, feel …whereas it’d take plastic surgery to alter our facial features.
So what’s the point of spending vast amounts of money, time and energy putting in a weave or relaxer only to say “it’s only hair?” All of it is a choice.   Personally I’ve  sported weaves, relaxers, braided extensions, afros, twists, cornrows….And when I chose those styles I chose them because I liked the way it looked on me, at the time.  Later, I fell in love with the natural texture of my hair and chose to reveal it.  Whatever style we go for, why  should we disown our hair and our hair choices – whatever those choices are – by saying I am not my hair?  Our hair is surely as much a part of us as our brain, our eyes and our heart .  I claim my hair 

Read on for an interview I did with the writer Memphis at Charcoal-Ink

Precious Williams UK writer and author of the book Precious (Color Blind U.S. version) shares with us how she became a writer and what inspired her to write her first book. Along with being a writer Precious rocks natural hair and shares with us her natural hair journey.

"

Precious when did you begin writing?

As soon as I’d learnt to read – aged around three and a half – I felt an urge to write my own stories.  So I began writing as soon as I’d learnt how to use a pen or pencil.

How did you know that writing would become your niche? 

It was the thing I’d always felt most excited about from as far back as I can remember.

As a young black woman living in the UK did you find it hard to get your work recognize as a writer? 

I was first published at the age of eight – so the answer to your question is clearly ‘no’.   I’m not clear why being young-ish, black, female and living in England would make one assume I’d find it hard to get my writing ‘recognized’. When it comes to getting work as a writer, in my experience the most essential factors are talent and tenacity, not having a specific shade of skin.  I encourage aspiring writers to focus on their craft and not to assume that their ethnicity or gender is going to be some kind of handicap.

You’ve written a memoir called Precious (Color Blind US. version) about growing up in foster care with a white family, can you tell us why you chose to write about this? 

Many writers’ first novels are autobiographical. I decided to simply write a memoir instead – my childhood was complicated and colourful and it kept hijacking any novel I attempted to write.  Having written my memoir I feel I have the space and freedom to create fiction.  I’m finishing my novel right now.

What would you like people to gain or take from reading your story? 

That you create your own path.

What are your thoughts about people such as Angelina Jolie, Sandra Bullock, Eva Longoria that adopt outside their race?

I’ve nothing against people adopting outside their own race.  However I’m very concerned about this lingering idea that African children – and African people in general – need to be ‘rescued’ and ‘civilized’ by white Westerners.  It’s like a modern-day colonialism and it is extremely damaging.

You’ve written for big magazines such as Elle and Cosmopolitan just to name a few, what tips do you have for aspiring young writers wanting to get to that point?

Aim high. Imagine if you always assumed you’ll succeed and that people are out to be kind to you rather than assuming you’ll fail and that people want to discriminate against you. Harness that feeling and go for it.

What tips would you give to someone wanting to write their first book?

Write a book that you yourself would feel excited to read.  If people try to tell you “it’s almost impossible to get published these days” tune out and don’t listen to them.

Now on to the natural hair …

How do you rock your hair? locs, afro, twist outs, etc …

I’ve had dreadlocks for nine years.   They had grown to waist-length but I just had six inches cut off them this summer as I felt they looked just a tad too hippy-ish.

How long have you been natural?

All through the 90s I wore hair extensions and hair straighteners and bought into the idea that black women actually HAD to drastically alter their hair in order to be accepted and acceptable.   Then one Saturday morning In 2000 I was taking out the latest set of straight hair extensions (a task that would take hours).  The plan was to then put a hat on my real hair (never allowed my own natural hair to be seen in public), jump in a cab and get to the hair salon ASAP to get yet more straight extensions put in.  But then I caught sight of my own hair in the mirror and fell in love with it.  It was an absolutely huge lively-looking afro, sort of like the singer Maxwell’s hair used to be before he cut it.

I hadn’t observed my unadulterated hair properly in years.  I’d taken to seeing my natural hair as a demon that needed to be corrected or covered up. That day I cancelled the hair salon appointment and decided to keep my own natural hair instead.   It felt like one of the most daring decisions I’d made in absolutely years – honestly it felt as though I was doing something utterly forbidden.  When I unveiled my hair to my family they were utterly horrified, all of them.  Even the Nigerian sales clerk at my local supermarket had a go at me about my hair.  It was mainly only white people and Rastafarians who were able to like or love my hair at that time.  A white friend asked me why I always straightened my hair when my real hair was so ‘pretty’.   My mother told me to expect to be sacked from my job (as a reporter at a national newspaper) if I continued walking around with my natural hair.  I was unmoved by the comments, good or bad.   My afro grew and grew. So did my “self-confidence”.

What made you want to go natural?

Well in no small part because I really LOVE the texture of natural afro hair.  And in retrospect I realized that I’d found it deeply humiliating walking around with the hair of Asian women woven into my head to supposedly make me look more “acceptable.”  I feel rather ashamed of the fact that I was once willing to go to such ridiculous lengths (no pun intended).  One of the lies I had come to believe back then was that black women had to wear fake, straight hair in order to be desirable to men.  Of course that turned out to be complete crap.  Most black men are very used to the presence of hair extensions but that doesn’t necessarily mean they like them.

In fact there is a group on Facebook called Black Men Against Weaves. As for white men, I still recall the utter confusion on the face of a white man I’d been dating during my hair extension phase.  He ran his fingers through what he thought was MY hair only to feel the tracks where the extensions were attached.  Weeks later he nervously asked me why I insisted on wearing “those strange little wigs”.  I had no answer.  The weekend when I finally took out the hair extensions for good I felt elated.  For me personally the wearing of fake hair had become a sort of pathology.

What’s your hair routine?

I pretty much just shampoo and go.   I also use ayurvedic hair oil for moisture.  But mainly I take care of hair health by eating right and taking Omega 3 oil etc.

What’s your favorite hair product?

It’s not very exciting but I guess my favourite product is my shampoo.  It’s an ayurvedic shampoo I get from a health food store in London.

What troubles you most about your hair?

I slightly fear going grey.  I don’t have any grey hairs yet and I can’t imagine how I’d look with a mane of grey or white dreadlocks.

Who is your hair inspiration?

I really love the singer Goapele’s hair.  Her dreadlocks were just beautiful and I love her braided styles too.

What advice would you give to newly naturals?

Enjoy your hair!

To learn more about Precious and her book you can visit her website at www.preciouswilliams.com

 

Interview/Vitabu Books/Precious Williams

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Vitabu Books Interview | Precious Wiliiams

Precious Williams is a journalist and author of the memoir Precious, A True Story, published by Bloomsbury in August 2010. A German translation of the book, titled Farbenblind, was published in October 2010 and a US edition, titled Color Blind, is published by Bloomsbury USA. Precious's first book is about growing up in trans-racial 'private foster care'. Vitabu Books presents a candid conversation with the author.

Vitabu Books: In your brilliant interview with Belinda Otas, you said it took you about a year to write Precious, but several more years to do all the research. Exactly how long was the process? Can you walk us through the time period? When did you start thinking you wanted to write a book about your experiences? What made you want to do it? You mention documents and data you collated with a lawyer and having family members read the manuscript and give feedback? What was that like? Did it make a difference? How?

Precious Williams: It took me about a year to write 'Precious' (aka 'Color Blind') and another three years to complete all the research. The research included appearing before a Judge at the Family Court in London to plea for access to childhood court records. Fortunately the Judge agreed to release my records. The next step was accessing my Social Services files, incredibly it took Social Services more than two years to release my childhood files to me. When it came to the fact-checking process, I found that my memory had been surprisingly accurate, even of events that happened when I was very young indeed. The next step was to have family members read the manuscript and I found that nerve-wracking, although in the end it turns I needn't have worried – my family readers didn't ask me to change a word.

While my book is about my search for identity, it also details various forms of abuse I experienced as child. You absolutely cannot publish such assertions without
proof and so a lawyer worked through my manuscript very carefully, liaising with members of my family in order to corroborate events, dates and facts. The enormous
bundle of court and Social Services documents I had in my possession by this time proved immensely useful as it meant there were detailed notes recorded way back then by third parties which backed up my story.

Why did I choose to write about my own experiences?

My own story kept creeping into everything else I tried to write, so in the end I had to just let it flow. I do not think I had realized how stressful writing and promoting a memoir would be until it was too late! Putting my own life story out there was rather like appearing naked in public (something I had experienced as I used to work as a life model). But of course the memoir is not just about me - I was (and am) also responsible for protecting the feelings of my loved ones and family members, while at the same time trying to tell my story as clearly and fully as possible. With every line I wrote, and later, in every media interview I gave, I was desperately worrying about how various family members would feel about what I was writing or saying. In the end, to my absolute surprise and delight, the publication and discussion of the book brought me much closer to my family members, especially to my foster family. My foster-aunty has accompanied me to several book signing/reading events and she says she feels famous now that she is a character in a book!

Vitabu Books: One reader described your book as something that's `out of your hands' and 'touching many different people in many different ways. This January you reflected on your experiences in What kind of family matters? How have your views on private fostering/adoption changed since you started this global conversation on family?

Precious Williams: I grew up utterly immersed in 'private fostering', where the natural parent gives the child to strangers or acquaintances (or sometimes extended family) to be looked after on an informal basis. I was privately fostered and so was one of my half-siblings, so were several of my cousins. I thought private fostering was totally normal. When I visited Nigeria as a young child, I found that my maternal grandmother informally fostered children of family members. There seemed to be an "it takes a whole village" attitude to child-rearing. But to my white English peers the process was bizarre, dangerous, [and] barbaric. They didn't understand at all. It's an ongoing conversation….

Vitabu Books: If you could do it all over again what would you do differently? In the writing/publishing process?

Precious Williams: Wow. This is a hard question to answer. I'm really proud of my book and I'm thrilled with the way the entire process has had a healing effect on family relationships. But, it was so, so, so intense. I still feel drained not so much from the writing but from the emotional fall-out (even the good stuff). If I could do it again maybe I'd write my life story but disguise it as a novel! As for the writing/publishing process, it couldn't have been better. I was in the amazingly fortunate position of being able to "pick" my publisher. I had an initial offer on the book from one of my dream publishing houses. Then a second offer came through, then a third offer from another of my dream publishing houses. In the end I met up with editors at the two final bidders and one paperback editor said something like "Please choose us," and I thought that was so lovely and unpretentious that my mind was made up instantly. It was the best decision I could have made!

Vitabu Books: What tips do you have for budding writers with compelling life stories out there?

Precious Williams: In my opinion it's important not to censor yourself at all in your very first draft. And don't ever give up!

Vitabu Books: What are you working on now? What's next?

Precious Williams: I'm finishing my second book which is a novel. An historical novel. I'm utterly excited about it, so that's a good sign.

Lenny Kravitz: 'Don't Call Me A Sex Symbol'

Lenny Kravitz: 'Don't Call Me A Sex Symbol'

one of my very first celeb interviews :) for the Evening Standard (London)

'Don't call me a sex symbol'

Precious Williams
Updated 00:00am on 27 Nov 2000

 

Lenny Kravitz is late. His "people" (a personal chef, band manager, tour manager, personal manager, publicists, fixers, press officers and assorted attractive but apparently purposeless hangers-on) are clustered in the bar of a small French hotel, making frantic mobile phone calls and periodically mouthing the words "any minute now" to me. Lenny has already been on his way "any minute now" for more than five hours.

When Lenny finally saunters into the hotel lobby, he doesn't apologise for his lateness. Flanked by a thickset bodyguard and his 11-year-old daughter, Zoe, he throws out nonchalant greetings of "Yo" and "Alriiiight" before ducking into the lift. Minutes later, I'm ushered up to his hotel room.
"Hey," he drawls lazily, arching an eyebrow. He is slumped on the sofa, his lithe body swamped by a shapeless and shabby burgundy cardigan that is held together with a giant safety pin. A matching knitted cap is pulled down low over his forehead. Lenny Kravitz is possibly the only man in the world who can make saggy knitwear look sexy. I ask whether he's growing his trademark long dreadlocks back - surely the only excuse for sporting such unflattering headgear.
"No. They contained too much bad energy, y'know?" he says in his laid-back LA drawl. "They went through a lotta heavy things. I had to let 'em go."

The dreads may have gone for good but the piercings are still very much in evidence. Six diamond studs and hoops in his left ear, one on either side of his nostrils. Lenny has, he tells me triumphantly, another three piercings that are out of my sight. One silver ring in each nipple and a third, that he refers to as "the family jewel", hidden beneath his flared jeans. "I enjoy having them done," he says with a satisfied smirk. He claims that being a sex symbol is the "furthest thing" from his mind. He finds it absurd that a musician who doesn't even comb his hair should be an international pin-up.
Whether Lenny approves of his lady-killer image or not, he certainly knows how to take advantage of it. In the course of his career he has (allegedly) seduced Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Natalie Imbruglia and French former pop star Vanessa Paradis. Currently he's strutting around town with Hollywood starlet Gina Gershon (who stars in the video to his forthcoming single, Again), although he has also been linked with model Devon Aoki.
Lenny's most enduring relationship was with Cosby Show actress (and Zoe's mother) Lisa Bonet. But their marriage broke down shortly after Lenny penned the raunchy Justify My Love for Madonna. Lenny wrote a song for Lisa, It Ain't Over Til It's Over, but sightings of Lenny smooching with Madonna seemed to convince Lisa that their marriage was indeed over. Following the release of Justify My Love, Lenny is said to have dubbed Madonna a "cold bitch", but today he speaks of her fondly. "She's my girl. We're very good friends."
He is also so spiritually close to Lisa these days that he has given her his shorn dreadlocks to keep in her LA home. "But I'm single now," he adds, momentarily avoiding eye contact. "It's just me. The only woman in my life is my daughter, Zoe. She lives with me. It's a lot but you make it work."
Like Zoe, Lenny was an only child. Raised mainly by his grandparents in Bed-Stuy, a ghetto-ish enclave of Brooklyn, Lenny lived on the same block as Puff Daddy. Lil' Kim and Spike Lee lived just around the corner. Then, during his teens, he was transplanted to star-studded LA, to live with his parents. He got his first taste of the glamour and excess that now dictate his lifestyle when he attended Beverly Hills High School. "Teenage kids driving Porsches and Ferraris. But I didn't even have a car. I rode the bus. And I never even had, like, a quarter, y'know?"
It is unlikely that Zoe will ever have to catch a bus to school. Today, multi-millionaire Lenny flits between a popart mansion in Miami and a beach home in the Bahamas. His mother, TV sitcom actress Roxy Roker, was a native of the island. His father, Sy Kravitz, is a Russian/Jewish TV producer. "My mom always taught me that I was as much one thing as the other," says Lenny of his multi-ethnic heritage. "She taught me to be proud of both sides, of being Jewish and West Indian. But at the same time my mom taught me that society would view me only as black."
Did this cause him confusion as a child? His expression alters from arrogance to momentary anger. "I've never had a thing about what I am. I never had a problem."
Maybe, but plenty of critics have had a problem with his identity. Throughout his five album, 15-year career, he has constantly been accused of not being black enough. And despite selling 12 million albums and receiving three Grammy Awards, black radio stations throughout America still refuse to play his music. "Everyone forgets that black people actually invented rock 'n' roll. I may not do what black people are supposed to be doing, but that's just so closed.
"People call me naive for writing all these love songs," he continues. "But I don't believe that."

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/music/article-898597-dont-call-me-a-sex-symbol.do

Can you be black and *English (*English as opposed to British)?

 

Nursery World

A couple of days after I was born,  my mother advertised me in a magazine called Nursery World.  I've seen the original ad but no longer have access to it.  It said something like 'Nigerian baby girl needs new home.'   Back then - in the 1970s - literally thousands of west African babies and children were advertised in this way.  Not only in Nursery World but also in the Evening Standard and in local newspapers in the Home Counties too.  Naturally, these advertisements were like gold dust to paedophiles and other shady types- they could flick through the pages of ads and select children to abuse who met their requirements.  

I know very little about the first person who responded to my mother's ad.  All I know is that this person sent away for me after seeing the Nursery World ad and my mother duly delivered me to them - somewhere in Somerset.  I was about nine days old when I arrived.   For reasons as yet unclear, my mother supposedly didn't visit me again for four to six weeks.  When she did finally visit me, she was, she's said, appalled by the state I was in.  I don't know what is meant by that - it's not clear whether I'd been neglected, abused or was simply unhappy because I was pining for my mum.  Anyhow, my mother removed me immediately and took me back to live with her.  I would have been about 7 weeks old at this point.  But by the time I was 9 weeks old, I was advertised in Nursery World again!  This time a white woman in her late 50s, based in West Sussex, replied to the ad and I was sent to live with her when I was 10 weeks old.  I called her Nanny.  She'd previously fostered two other west African babies who she'd seen advertised in Nursery World - but their birth parents had finally taken them back.

After more than a year with Nanny, who dressed me up like a little princess and seemed delighted to look after me, my real mother took me back, seemingly for good.  Nanny was devastated and found a new African baby girl in Nursery World's classified pages and sent away for her.  Several weeks later, with her new foster-daughter installed in her home, Nanny was flicking through Nursery World just out of curiosity when she came across an advert that looked very familiar.  My reunion with my mother clearly hadn't worked out - she had advertised me in Nursery World for a third time.  Nanny sent away for me again and I returned....

More than 30 years later a journalist from Nursery World contacted me to interview me about my history with the magazine.  And here's the piece:

http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/1032990/Nursery-World-advert-inspiration-memoir/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH

Interview with Precious Williams by Tricia Wombell

I was recently interviewed by Tricia Wombell for Lime Magazine and for her excellent blog, Black Book News.  Tricia is a really good interviewer who brought thoughtful questions:

Precious William’s memoir Precious: A True Story has just been published by Bloomsbury. I am pleased that she agreed to answer my questions about her book and the books that have inspired her.

Thank you Precious.

Your book is a memoir about your being privately fostered to an English family in West Sussex during the 1970s. Why did you decide to write it in this narrative non-fiction style when you could have protected yourself and your family by writing it as fiction?

I decided that if I was going to write down my story, I was going to go all the way with it and write it in a naked, tell-it-all way. One of the themes running through the book is the subject of childhood abuse. Even in 2010 there is this 'don't talk about it' attitude (especially within black communities) that allows child abuse to happen, the secrecy of it gives paedophiles a chance to thrive. It's not an easy task to talk about it and admit it happened to you but talking about it and bringing it into the light is an important thing to do. That's why I did it.

How has your family responded to the book?

For most of my family members (foster family and biological family), this book doesn't contain any revelations. They knew what had happened, we just didn't talk about it before. The transformations that have taken place with some of my family members and friends, as a result of writing and talking about this book, are just amazing. Relationships have been taken to a whole other level of openness and mutual respect and compassion. One of my family members apologised to me as she felt she hadn’t been ‘there’ for me during the traumatic moments. Ironically she was one of the relatively few people who were very kind during my childhood and it was extremely sweet of her to say she wished she could have done more.

Read the rest of interview at Tricia Wombell's blog here:

Hip-hop goes to finishing school by Precious Williams

Angelo Ellerbee, hip-hop's Professor Higgins, teaches rap stars the rules of etiquette by Precious Williams

article first published in The Times

“Sometimes I’ve had to approach rappers during interviews, ask them to step outside, discreetly hand them a bar of soap and a flannel and tell them to go wash their body,” says Angelo Ellerbee, founder and CEO of Double Xxposure, the world’s only finishing school for rappers.

Known in New York as hip-hop’s answer to Henry Higgins, Ellerbee charges about £140 an hour. He teaches clients how to pose for the camera, order in restaurants, get into shape, eat healthily and express themselves without “cussin’ ”. “It’s an institute of knowledge,” he says.

Ellerbee , a 47-year-old gay former ballet dancer, may seem an unlikely mentor for socially challenged urban-music stars, but his clients — who include Mary J. Blige, Sisqo and the rappers DMX and Ja Rule — beg to differ. His clients, he points out, are “from some of the rawest environments, where they don’t know the basics of social skills and etiquette.” 

Bad manners, he says, are a worldwide epidemic, particularly in the urban- music industry, which is why he plans to open an office in London next year. “You people have slightly better manners, but it’s changing. Rappers wherever they are in the world seem to pride themselves on being thuggish.

“Things have changed for the worse. During the Motown era, recording careers were well planned and images created and enhanced by professionals who helped the artist develop every aspect of themselves. Diana Ross and the Supremes came from poor backgrounds but they were fabulous and elegant. Those days are long gone.”

Reclining in his office opposite the Empire State Building, Ellerbee is resplendent in a Gaultier pinstriped suit jacket. His office is decorated with signed photographs of clients. A typical challenge was the rapper DMX: “ He turned up days late for a shoot with GQ. They had hired a tiger for the shoot and the tiger was getting tired of waiting for DMX, and everybody else was getting tired of waiting too. DMX would agree to do interviews and then only do five out of 25 of them. Eventually we had to resort to doing e-mail interviews, and then it would be me actually doing the interview.”

Ellerbee prides himself on being resourceful — his mantra is “by any means necessary”. He will do what it takes to whip wayward rappers into shape. Sometimes that includes teaching them how to read and write. “A quarter of my clients can’t read,” he says. “Nobody even knows because they can get away with not writing their lyrics down and simply reciting them straight into a tape recorder. But I have a subliminal reading test. I invite them to my house, put on the video of the movie Native Son, and get out the popcorn.

“Afterwards I hand them a copy of the novel by James Baldwin that inspired the book. I give them two weeks to read it and then ask them how they thought the book compared with the movie. The book is entirely, 100 per cent different, from the film. If they say it was the same, or if they have no comment at all, I conclude that they can’t read but are too proud to admit it. And if they can’t read a book, how are they going to read and understand a recording contract? “If you can’t read, there’s no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for you.”

Ellerbee first noticed the plight of talented but illiterate and socially challenged artists when he worked briefly in PR at Chrysalis Records in the 1980s: “They were raw. They made fools of themselves often and had no idea. There was nobody to teach them the basic social graces that we should be taught by our parents.”

Although Ellerbee grew up in the projects of New Jersey, his mother taught him manners. Now he’s going back to the projects on a reality TV show called Charmed to share what he’s learnt, like a modern-day My Fair Lady. Today, the etiquette guru is providing a crash course in manners to Field Mob, a burgeoning rap duo from Georgia. The rappers — who want Ellerbee to teach them how to behave in restaurants and impress music-industry executives — are late. Two hours late. “But that’s still early for rappers,” says Ellerbee. “They’d have to be five hours late before it’s considered late. Some of them turn up days late.” He chuckles to himself then shakes his sleek head.

Finally, Field Mob arrive, two and a half hours late, their waistbands drooping almost to their ankles. Ellerbee swoops out of his office to meet them and gets straight down to basics. “Y’all reading contracts these days?” he asks. “Do you have a lawyer?” The rappers mumble an incoherent response.

Ellerbee’s assistants have set up a makeshift restaurant table in a corner office, with crystal wine glasses, candles and a damask tablecloth. The rappers are seated and wine is poured. “S***! He gave us real wine,” exclaims one, taking a gulp.

“What’s the first thing you should do when you sit down at a table?” Ellerbee asks. “Eat!” they say in unison. “The napkin,” says Ellerbee, grimacing. “Do either of you know what to do with it?” There are confused stares. “You put it in your lap,” Ellerbee says. “Not like a shawl around your shoulders. Don’t use it to wipe your nose with. Making it in this industry is not just about getting cars and jewellery and women.”

At the mention of the word “women” the rappers’ eyes light up. “Some of these rappers get carried away by their fame and start imagining that they are Tom Selleck or something, that they are sex machines,” Ellerbee whispers.

“They will demand a female journalist for interviews and then spend the whole time winking at her and imagining she is there to have sex with them. They lose the point of who they are and why the journalist is there and then get upset when the article comes out stupid.”

Speaking of interviews, the Ellerbee alumnus Mary J. Blige challenged an interviewer to a fistfight early in her career. Was this before or after she’d graduated from the charm guru’s boot camp?

“Mary,” says Ellerbee fondly. “She needed work. That happened before I worked with her. Like a lot of people, she needed to learn to express herself without resorting to anger. It was a long journey. Working with these artists is like brewing real coffee: it takes time for it to be ready. The good stuff is not instant. But Mary has finally brewed into a lady. And she’s reading books now, too.”

Rap on the knuckles: Angelo’s tips for new stars

1. Stay as humble as blueberry pie out of your mama’s kitchen. Be a pleasure to be around.

2. Defer to God no matter what.

3. Have commitment. Put in the work to promote yourself in the best light possible. Invest in yourself. Remember that it’s your career, not your record label’s career.

4. Remember that reading is fundamental and educate yourself. A class in accounting is a good idea too.

5. When travelling don’t bring nine people along for the ride — remember that ultimately you’re paying their expenses, not the record company. Leave the entourage at home.

6. Understand timing and punctuality.

7. Don’t arrive at a photo shoot or interview high.

8. When meeting people for the first time remember that first impressions create a lasting impression.

9. Wash — you may think you know how to wash yourself, but do you? Pay attention to hygiene.

10. No cussing. Learn to be articulate. Try to talk about your life experiences without using the word “motherf****” in every (or in any) sentence.

An Education: Ivy League Hookers

 
 by Precious Williams

first published in Glamour magazine

WHEN I meet Celine she is wearing a floor-length Marc Jacobs coat over  Chloe jeans,  a TSE Cashmere sweater and Jimmy Choo spike heels.  She jokingly calls herself a "label whore." In reality she is also a whore in the more traditional sense of the word.

 Celine, a 20 year-old Economics undergraduate at New York University (NYU) has never had a pimp and she never walks the streets (she takes cabs everywhere instead) – but she is a fully-fledged hooker.  In between lectures at NYU she gets paid $300 an hour for sex with strangers who are old enough to be her father.  

 "I don’t see sex and love as being inextricably connected," says Celine, a tall, slim blonde with long legs and perfect skin.  "I can make more cash on my back right now than I’ll maybe ever earn with a straight job," she admits, tossing back her sleek, shoulder-length blonde hair (kept sleek and straight with a $700 Japanese straightening process four times a year at Frederic Fekkai).  "And it’s easy.  Nobody keeps tabs on you, especially not in a big city college like NYU.  Nobody is in your business at all."

A self-confessed shopaholic, Celine is simply not interested in making do on the $1500 a month allowance her parents send her. "That’s just rent and food money," she says with a shrug.  "That just covers the basics.  It doesn’t leave me with enough cash to actually go out and have fun." 

Celine’s attitude is not unique.   A new breed of university students in America are going on the game in order to live out their college years in style.  These students-for-hire don’t have drug habits or money issues (they all come from comfortable middle-class homes) and they are not yearning to be rescued.   They have sex for cash so that they can splurge on Prada shoes and meals at expensive restaurants.

Celine makes around $3,000 a week for having sex with four or five different men a night, three nights a week.  She became a hooker a year ago.  "I know it sounds corny, but living in New York is constant pressure to spend cash.  Everybody is amazingly groomed and every shop you go into has like a million outfits that you are just desperate to own.  I would go into Barneys Co-op and not be able to afford a single thing in the store.  Not even like a hair-clip.  My parents have always paid my living expenses but I couldn’t hit them up for designer stuff.   I’d been fantasizing about becoming a hooker and making loads of cash for a while – but I didn’t think I’d ever have the nerve to actually do it."

One day last year Celine took a deep breath and called an escort agency she had seen advertised in the Manhattan Yellow Pages.  "I was interviewed in an apartment in midtown by the guy who owns the agency.   My hair was shorter back then and he suggested I grow it longer or get hair extensions – because men like something to grab hold of when you give them oral sex," she smirks.

"Then he asked me to undress, gave me a bottle of body lotion and asked me to massage him.  He told me to treat him like I would treat a client so I did and we had sex in three different positions.  It was totally gross, he was quite old and really fat.  But afterward I felt like there was nothing left that I wouldn’t do.  He called me with my first job that night.

"I don’t feel bad about the sex at all now.  I tell my boyfriend that I’m in the library when I’m really seeing a client and I just get on with it and do what I have to do.  Sometimes I get really turned on and have an orgasm but most of the time it’s a bit boring and just something I do to get what I want. "It’s a hell of a lot less demeaning than working as a waitress or something. And I always reward myself by getting a manicure and pedicure and going on a shopping spree at Bergdorf Goodman or Barney’s every Saturday afternoon."

Celine may make it sound glamorous but this is certainly not a job for the squeamish.  Student call-girls have to have sex with men they find physically repulsive and endure clients who insist on urinating on them or ejaculating into their perfectly made-up faces.

"The things that shocked me when I started don’t shock me at all now," laughs Jenn, a statuesque blonde Aviation Management student at Toronto’s Georgian university, and a part-time prostitute.  "I do most things – Greek (anal sex), Russian (where a client thrusts his penis between a girl’s breasts until he ejaculates all over her cleavage).  The only thing I won’t do is sex without a condom."

Like Celine, Jenn became a hooker in order to indulge her passion for shopping – and she is unapologetic about the way she funds her glam lifestyle. "I actually enjoy the sex and I really get off on knowing a man is having to pay $250 an hour just to have sex with me," says Jenn,  22, as she strolls barefoot around her apartment in Toronto.  "They really respect me."

A self-confessed shopaholic, Jenn has been a prostitute ever since she started university four years ago.  "Toronto is very expensive," she says by way of explanation.  "And doing this lets me actually concentrate on my studies.  Money is not an issue, I can afford pretty much anything I want right now. That’s a pretty great feeling."

Jenn initially worked for an escort agency but went "freelance" once she had acquired a steady stream of regular clients.  Now she advertises her services on the Internet and has sex with around twelve men each week.  Last year she bedded more than 500 men and made $140,000. 

Jenn’s boyfriend John stares at her adoringly as she checks her email for messages from potential clients.  Her email monicker is "Ample Aphrodite".  John, a 41-year-old caterer, met Jenn a few months ago when he paid her $250 for sex.  The next time they had sex, Jenn didn’t charge and they’ve been together ever since.  John, who lives in upstate New York pops over the Canadian border to spend weekends with Jenn and goes out to a local coffee shop while Jenn has sex with clients. 

‘It doesn’t bother me at all," he says.  "I’m an open-minded guy.  She’s in control of her life."

Jenn’s face lights up as she starts to talks about her favourite pastime: shopping.  "I’m the shopping queen," she squeals.  "I buy a lot of clothes for my friends as well."  In the past year Jenn has spent $30,000 on clothes, $3,000 on manicures and facials, and $3,000 on lingerie.  She blows the rest of her earnings on rent (her Toronto apartment costs $3,000 per month) and going out clubbing. "I don’t save a lot of cash.  I can’t put my earnings into the bank because they are illegal earnings so I’ll spend it straight away.  Occasionally I’ll deposit a big wad of cash into the bank and pretend that I won the Bingo."

Prostitution among student call-girls is more about greed than desperation, according to Tracy Quan, a call-girl and author of the semi-autobiographical novel "Nancy Chan: The Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl".

"Most of the prostitutes I know are materialistic, very attractive girls who like to shop," she says.  Tracy, a petite and pretty thirty-something with long glossy black hair, started having sex for cash while she was a student in Canada and loved it so much that she eventually dropped out of education to pursue prostitution full-time in New York.  

"I enjoy the sex and the people I meet.  I got a job in a Manhattan brothel when I was 19 and I was just thrilled to be working there," she says.  "It was an upmarket place that looks like a regular apartment from the outside.  The madam worked from her private book – she didn’t advertise, so it was very safe.  Our clients were lawyers, Wall Street bankers, doctors and fashion designers. "Some of the more famous fashion designers would pay me for sex by bringing me a dress from their showroom."

After a couple of years at the brothel,  Tracy stepped out on her own and built up her own clientele of regular clients, charging $500 an hour.   "I look on it as a business although I’m no business genius," she confesses.  "I’ve never banked any of it.  I just spend it.  I’m a bit irresponsible with cash."

Tracy hasn’t invested in property or stocks and shares.  "I’m a bit irresponsible with cash," she says.  But she has invested in her appearance; she is immaculately groomed and the closet in her upper east side apartment is packed with expensive clothes and accessories. 

"I indulge in Wolford bodysuits and Bottega Venetta handbags," she says.  "They look good with everything."

The publication of Tracy’s book may render her too notorious to continue as a hooker but she says she has no regrets and feels prostitution has afforded her a well-rounded life so far.  "I never have to take public transport," she says.   "I go to the theatre regularly and I eat out in great restaurants like Cipriani."

Later, I talk to Lisa, a recent Cornell graduate (English Literature) dressed in dark blue Earl Jeans and a Dolce & Gabbana coat.   I meet Lisa at City Bakery, a trendy Manhattan café famed for it’s hot chocolate (and frequented by the Sex and the City cast).  Lisa orders a salad and mineral water and confides that she is "basically a courtesan".

"I’ve always gone for rich, older boyfriends," says Lisa, a stunning 28 year-old New Yorker who looks like a shorter version of Naomi Campbell.  Prostitution is the first job Lisa has ever had.  Her father (an accountant from Connecticut) is so generous that she could afford to wear Chanel and Helmut Lang to her university lectures. However, when she moved to England to embark on a Master’s degree at Cambridge, Lisa decided it was time to stand on her own two feet. 

She had sex for cash for the first time in London last year – with a  wrinkly 67- year old  entrepreneur she met at a cocktail party.  "He took me to lunch the next day, asked me if I needed anything and when I mentioned a Calvin Klein dress I’d seen in Dickins & Jones, he bought it for me.  I had sex with him that night at the Dorchester.   During foreplay he asked me to lick his anus because it really turned him on.  I was only able to do it by visualising the shopping trips I could have in the future if I kept on the right side of him."

A year later and back in New York, Lisa still sees her first client (who is married with children Lisa's age) when he flies into New York on business once a month.   He writes her a cheque for 1,000 pounds each time they meet, showers her with gifts and pays the rent on her TriBeca apartment.   Lisa sees her six "other boyfriends" (all married men in their 50s and 60s) more regularly; two or three times a month.  She pretends to her parents and friends that she is a freelance publicist.  "I don’t have a boyfriend though, that would just be impossible when a client is paying my rent," she says with a shrug. "It’s tricky leading a double life."

Besides being tricky, leading a double life is also emotionally corrosive, according to New York psychotherapist Dr Patricia Lyons.  "Leading a double life could impair these girls’ future self-image and self-esteem.  The fact that they are college graduates and potential college graduates makes them different from women who turn to prostitution because it is all they have available to them.

"If they go ahead and tell their boyfriends the truth about their pasts they will probably never secure that their partner really loves and respects them.  And if they don’t tell, they’ll have to deal with the constant fear of being found out."

Although Jenn confessed that she was a hooker to her mother and younger sister years ago – she had kept her night job a secret from her friends at university until one day last year wen she was exposed during a computer class.  "Some of the other students found my web-site in the middle of a packed classroom and started screaming and ridiculing me.  It was soooo humiliating.

But Jenn remains undaunted.  "I’m not sure when I’m going to give up being a call-girl," she says.  "My clients really respect me, although they often seem surprised when they find that I can  hold an intelligent conversation. 

My intelligence always makes them ask me why I do this for a living. "I tell my clients that I do this for the same reason they work in merchant banks and in law firms – for the money.  I could make $250 a week as a waitress or I can live it up on  $2,500 for a few hours’ lying on my back.  It’s a pretty easy choice."

copyright Precious Williams 2010

INTERVIEW: Jhumpa Lahiri

 Novelist Jhumpa Lahiri is the sort of woman who makes being brilliant and accomplished appear effortless. At 36, and with just two books behind her, Lahiri is already one of the most celebrated American authors of her generation. Her first book, a short story collection called 'Interpreter of Maladies', earned her the coveted Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2OOO.

The Pulitzer, the American equivalent of the Booker prize, represents the pinnacle of literary success. Previous recipients of the award include Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and John Updike.

But when I meet Lahiri, she tells me she is keen to put the 'whole Pulitzer business' behind her.

'Winning was almost disturbing, because it was so unexpected,' she says. 'It was good news, but because it came out of nowhere, it shook me. I found out during a phone call, not from the Pulitzer people, but from my publisher.

More prestigious literary awards seemed to tumble into Lahiri's lap. The O Henry award for short-story writers was followed by the PEN/Hemingway award for unpublished writers. Then she was named one of the 20 best writers under the age of 40 by The New Yorker magazine. Newsweek commented, 'Lahiri writes such direct, translucent prose you almost forget you're reading'. The NewYork Times called her 'a writer of uncommon elegance and poise'. 

Amid the abundant praise, Lahiri, newly married and pregnant, wrote The Namesake, her second book and first novel. The Namesake is an eloquently written, moving book that spans two generations and two continents, India and America. The protagonist in the story, Gogol, is born to Bengali parents in America in the late Sixties. The Namesake charts his struggles to carve out his own identity and disentangle himself from his immigrant parents' expectations and traditions, in its exploration of being a second-generation immigrant.

Lahiri herself was born in London to Bengali parents who moved to Rhode Island, on the east coast of America, when she was two, where her father took up a post at Rhode Island University.

'My parents assumed that life would be the same for their children because they didn't know any alternative. As an Indian girl, you didn't date and were very respect ful and quiet - it was just a different existence'.

Many of the characters in Lahiri's stories end up in arranged marriages, but her own parent s never broached that subject with her as she entered her twenties. She met her husband, who is of Guatemalan and Greek origin, at a friend's wedding about six years ago.

'I was never under pressure to marry,' she says. 'But I expected to be, because in my parents' culture that was the way things were done. It's taken them a lifetime of living here to see the different ways one can be raised. And, as I've got older,I've understood where they are coming from. But as a child, I thought they were excessively conservative and demanding.'

The recurrent theme in Lahiri's writing is the bitter - sweet experience of emigrating to America from India. Her characters are often caught in a cultural limbo - excited about their new home but grieving the loss of their country of origin.

In The Namesake, an American-born Bengali baby is given the name Gogol (after the Russian writer) as a pet name. The name sticks after his official name, selected by an elder in Bengal, get s lost in the post.

'Names are very important in Bengal, and the idea for the The Namesake grew from a visit to Calcutt a when I was in my early twenties, she says. 'one of my cousins had a friend called Gogol, and I never forgot that name. I wondered why a little Bengali boy would be named after a l9th-century Russian writer .' In The Namesake, the young Gogol announces that he is changing his name to Nikhil - or the more English-sounding Nick for short. The boy's father, Ashoke, is unimpressed but concedes, 'In America, anything is possible. Do as you wish.'

But as a child, growing up in South Kingstown, a rural town in Rhode Island, Lahiri didn't feel as though anything was possible. Even though she had been writing short stories and articles since she was about ten, she never imagined that she could make a living as a novelist.

'I had assumed that I'd lead an academic life, because that's what I'd been trained to do,' she says. 'I grew up in that world. Everyone I knew was the child of a professor, and my father was a university librarian. If you were intelligent and had a subject you liked, you taught at university . It was a nice, solid living'.

'But at graduate school I became really unhappy with that academic world, and I started writing fiction in the evenings, I wrote enough to get accepted on a seven month writing fellowship in Massachusetts, and it was there that my writing career took off'.

'Getting my short stories published was the biggest, most profoundly altering and wonderful news of my writing life. It just felt so huge - such a dream,' says Lahiri, breaking into a radiant smile. She is currently working on her third book, although she adds, 'I don't really think of them as books. I just write and see where it goes.' She works for several hours each day 'because if I don't, I don't feel right.'

When not writing, Lahiri spends her time with her son, and evenings are often spent reading, cooking for her family or, she admits with a giggle, knitting.

this interview first appeared in the "Mail on Sunday"

copyright Precious Williams, 2010