I Am Sinitta...
Sinitta is best known not only for her musical career during the 1980s, but also her long–term relationship with TV mean man Simon Cowell. Over the last few years, Sinitta has also worked behind the scenes helping to identify and develop new talent, including Natasha Bedingfield and Myleene Klass. Following a successful music and stage career, she has worked as a judge on ITV’s talent series Grease Is The Word and is now Simon Cowell’s right-hand woman on The X-Factor.
Tune in to heat radio on 14th July at 8pm to hear her talking to Lucie Cave.
heat: Who are the most influential people in your life?
Sinitta: Influential people - definitely my mother, my children, Simon Cowell, Simon Cowell’s mother. I think that’s probably it.
h: Let’s start off by talking a little bit about your relationship with your mum. You had quite an unusual upbringing didn’t you, you were raised by your mother after she gave birth to you and your twin sister when she was 14 is that right?
S: Yes.
h: And then your twin sister was adopted.
S: But within the family. Another aunt who couldn’t have children adopted her.
h: Were you aware that you had a twin sister?
S: No, even though we were together, we saw each other on the weekends but I thought she was just my aunt’s little girl and that we dressed alike. I didn’t really get it.
h: When did you find out that you had a twin sister and what was that like?
S: I met her when I was doing Mutiny at the Piccadilly Theatre in 1985/86. She came to England to find us because her adopted mother had died and so she came looking for her real family. But she’d grown up always aware of me.
h: So that must have been quite mad for you to take in.
S: Oh yes, it was really mad and in fact I didn’t like it either because I had this really sort of romantic attachment to my mother. You know - us two against the world - and suddenly there was somebody else, and not only somebody else but somebody who looked just like me, and more like my mother than I do.
h: What did you say to your mum about it?
S: I just had a bit of a fit, I was like the cheated woman, it was like she’d been having an affair with someone behind my back, and I didn’t actually speak to her for two years. It was quite a difficult time, and I was at a difficult age. My music and theatre career was taking off, so I had lots of other pressure and things I was dealing with. So I kind of just checked out for a couple of years.
h: What did your mum say to you about it?
S: She didn’t really feel that she’d kept it a secret, because she assumed I remembered her. I vaguely remembered playing with a little girl but I just didn’t realise who she was to me.
h: What’s your relationship like with your sister now?
S: We don’t really have a relationship. She’s been over a few times. We had our twenty-first birthdays together, and then when she had her little boy, she brought him over to meet us. But we’re not really close, we’re not e-mailing or texting or in touch regularly.
h: Have you got a song that reminds you of your childhood?
S: You know what’s really funny? Believe it or not, Marvin Gaye What’s Going On seemed to be this album that my mother was playing non-stop at the time. I can even remember the album sleeve and how all the lyrics were on the record, so you could look and sit and follow it and sing along to it word for word. I mean it’s kind of appropriate I think, what’s going on?!
h: Was your mum’s background in music?
S: It wasn’t actually, because her family were in property. They were builders and developers. But she started singing really young and had an act that she used to do with some of her friends. She got into the touring version of the musical Hair and went all over the world with that, and that’s actually how we came to live in England, because the show eventually brought her here. So my impression of her is that there was always music and dance ever since I was born.
h: Did she sing to you?
S: Well, she used to sing Aquarius with Meat Loaf in the show! In fact I actually covered the song when I did the show in 1993 in London in the West End.
h: You said your mum was travelling around and that’s how you moved to London - did she go to Australia for a bit?
S: Yes.Maybe it was for eight weeks, but in my mind it was like eight years. We were reunited when I was six I remember that.
h: What were you doing in the meantime?
S: I was actually with different aunts who were looking after me, who also wanted to adopt me. I wasn’t interested in being adopted, so I’d make myself difficult, not eating with one aunt and with another aunt I didn’t speak. Finally they put me on a plane to Brisbane which was amazing!
h: So what was it like for you growing up with your mum all over the place? You mentioned that your aunt wanted to adopt you, that must have been really strange for a child to think, “Hang on, I don’t want to be adopted by someone else, I want to be with my mum.”
S: I quite like the lady that gave birth to me. It was quite scary because no one really discussed it with me; I’d hear them talking to her on the telephone long-distance and they’d be saying, “We really love her,” and, “We could keep her, you can’t take care of her properly, you know they shoot black people in Australia”! Because everyone had heard of Australia, they knew that there were some Aborigines and bush people.
h: You must have been scared.
S: Not only worried that I was going to be kept, but also worried that my mother was going to be shot because she was a black person in Australia! Shot for sport, which of course it wasn’t like that at all, but these were people who’d never left Detroit ever.
h: Did that upset you? Was there ever an upsetting time or were you quite resilient as a kid?
S: It was quite upsetting, but also I was aware of not wanting my relatives to feel that I didn’t love them and that I wasn’t grateful to them. So it was quite difficult at that age to have all of that going on in my mind.
h: So is it down to your mum that you got involved in music?
S: I’d definitely say so, even though she would always talk about how clever I was and what a high IQ I had, how I should be a doctor. I knew I wanted to sing and because I’d be in her dressing room or backstage watching the shows that she was in every night - Jesus Christ Superstar, Hair, Bowling Brown Sugar. So I kind of knew all the words and movement to every show she was in, that was my early, early apprenticeship I think.
h: How did you start down that route yourself?
S: I started down that route, and any kids who might be [reading] please don’t copy me! I found myself in the English boarding school system here, Sister Mary’s, which was very strict, very staunch, nothing like the Enid Blyton books I’d read.
h: Not Mallory Towers then?
S: No. So I sneaked out of school, because you’re allowed to come up to London to go to the dentist or do different things if you had appointments. I forged a letter from my mother saying I had a dental appointment in Harley Street and went off and auditioned for a show called The Wizz, which had been on Broadway with Stephanie Mills. It was the black musical version of The Wizard Of Oz, and I was convinced that I was Dorothy, and I was right!
h: What was that like? You went for this audition, skived school, and then you found out that you’d got a part.
S: I was still quite young, but I got the part. The tricky thing about it was that my mother had been offered the part of Dorothy’s aunt, Aunty M, and had turned it down because it was going to be happening over the summer holidays, and meanwhile I get the job! So I was off in Sheffield doing The Wizz at the Crucible.
h: What did your mum say when you told her?
S: She was impressed and irritated at the same time! If she’d thought about it, we could have both been earning money and the show would have been an inbuilt babysitter for her. But as it was, she then ended up doing something somewhere else and had one of her friends who’d took her job taking care of me up there.
h: Did you take it in your stride or were you really excited about the fact that this was your big break?
S: I loved it, every single minute of it. I actually got kicked out of SMG, of course, and ended up boarding at a Russian ballet school called Legat. It was kind of like the ballet version of the performing arts school. So to be in The Wizz was just heaven, I got paid to sing and dance and hang out with all these cool young dancers every night.
h: How old were you when you were doing that?
S: I was 12.
h: Twelve?
S: I was thirteen at the end of the summer. It was great. They’d sort of said, “Look, you’ve got to be chaperoned, so you can’t go out.” But the girl who was my chaperone was only17 and she used to say, “I don’t really want to stay in with you, so I’m going to put some make up on you and you can come out with me!” So I had a great time.
h: When would you say you got your first big break?
S: I did a couple of shows. I did Little Shop Of Horrors, Cats. [I] sort of had to go to school, which was most irritating for me, it really interrupted my career. But full time I would say about ’86 doing Mutiny on the Bounty with David Essex at the Piccadilly Theatre.
h: Did this come about just because people had heard of you, or did you just keep going to audition after audition?
S: My amazing mother actually pushed me in to auditioning, because they’d been looking for the part of Maimiti for two years. It was in all the papers how they were looking for someone to play this Tahitian princess. I went along and sure enough - literally before I’d gotten back home - they’d phoned my agent, which was me again! Sadie LaSalle, taken from from the Jackie Collins novel.
h: Brilliant! Do you still use that name now? Checking in to hotels or anything?
S: Yeah, oops! That year, I was starring in the West End with David Essex, who I still had a poster of on my bedroom wall; and So Macho was a hit. Simon and I finally managed to get the record off the ground. It was all kind of happening.
h: So let’s just backtrack a little bit. How did you meet Simon Cowell?
S: I met Simon Cowell with my prefect friend, in the Embassy Club. I shouldn’t’ have been there as usual.
h: You weren’t 12, I hope?
S: No I was about fourteen by then! Fourteen, fifteen. And Simon had just started a record label with his friend. They didn’t have any acts, but their offices were above the agency where I used to manage myself from, on South Molton Street. I’d heard a record company had opened upstairs and I went up said to him, “You know what, I’m kind of like the black Madonna! You should do a record with me, I’ve already done a few records.” I’d had a few underground hits. He said, “Get out! Get out! Come back when you have boobs!”
h: He hasn’t changed then.
S: I thought he was quite cute, and he had long hair like David Cassidy, he was really pretty in those days! Then finally I went away and made So Macho with some producers.
h: So you did that off your own back?
S: We did that off our own back, me and the guy who wrote the song. We touted it around all the clubs, because that’s how you had to do it then. You had to go to all the discos and all the clubs and do free P.A.’s. [I] built up a demand, and then went in [to Simon] and said, “That song, look at these DJ reaction reports. That’s me, that’s my record, what do you think?” He said, “Hmm, you are quite good, maybe we can do something.” So they signed the deal and the record just went through the roof.
h: Wow! And you dated Simon Cowell as well.
S: I did date Simon Cowell, yes. By then. he’s the A&R guy at the record company, he’s my manager, he’s my tour manager, and my road manager, and my chaperone.
h: And your boyfriend?
S: And my boyfriend, but he didn’t have much choice after that, we were together all the time!
h: Is that how it happened then? You were just like, “I’ve been with you, I’ve been hanging around with you for so long, we might as well date?”
S: Oh no, I had a huge crush on him. He actually liked a friend of mine, who was triple timing him, and he just really surprised me one day, just said, “You know what, I don’t really like her, it’s you I like.” You know when you don’t kind of believe it, because we were such buddies? But it was fantastic, because I thought he was really cute.
h: And did you go out with each other for sixteen years?
S: On and off, because Simon was a horrible cheat! He was a horrible cheat. He was always disappearing and stuff, you know, and I’d have to work and he’d almost be laughing as he waved me off on a plane to Japan, like, “Great, I’m going to have a really good time while you’re away.”
h: And how did that feel?
S: I’d be crying he’d be laughing!
h: Did he break you heart at any point then?
S: Oh definitely, he reckons that I broke his, but he definitely broke mine.
h: Was there anything that you’d listen to when you were feeling depressed about him and his cheating ways?
S: My breaking up with Simon song? There was Luther Vandross and Stop To Love
h: As you were crying over Simon Cowell.
S: Crying over Simon Cowell - it’s so bad isn’t it? So bad! We’d break up because he’d do something awful and I’d go off and find somebody else. Then he’d see me with the somebody else and not like that and wait for it to fall apart. [He’d] do weird things to piss my boyfriend off, and then, of course, I’d go back to him.
h: What did he used to do?
S: Just really awful things. I even dated David Essex for a bit and he’d be just winding him up. He’d park his car across from the stage door and be like, “Look how old he is, he could be your granddad, look at his hair.” He’d just pick holes in them so that I’d go off them and go running back to him.
h: What’s your relationship with him like now? Because you’re still really, really close aren’t you?
S: Yeah, we’re super close now. I would say that we’re like siblings who look after each other. But we also kind of beat each other up a little as well. He’s still the worst, but he’s also the best.
h: Was it a no-brainer that he was going to be the godfather to your children?
S: He told me that he was going to be. [I] didn’t really have much say in it!
h: Has he lived up to expectations?
S: He’s like the third child, literally!
h: I bet they love having him as a godfather.
S: Oh they love it, but they do call him Silly Simon, so I get my own back.
h: Does your husband mind how close you still are?
S: Because we were so close when we met, he kind of accepts the Simon factor.
h: Likewise, Simon’s girlfriends obviously accept the Sinitta factor don’t they?
S: Yes, it’s kind of like that. In fact, there was a time when he did date someone who couldn’t stand me and I didn’t like her much either. I remember we were all going on holiday together, and I wasn’t going to go because he’d met her. I went away and thought about it. Then I saw them sitting outside the Bluebird having tea. I was in my gym kit, sweaty, trainers, looking a mess. She was groomed to within an inch of her life having tea, and I said, “Hi, I’ve thought about it and guess what, I’m going to come on holiday!” Big smile! And she just looked me up and down and went, “Whoopee!”
h: I hope he dumped her soon after that.
S: Strangely enough, two weeks before the holiday, she was toast, so off Simon and I went!
h: You mentioned that you also dated David Essex, but you also - which I am fascinated by - dated Brad Pitt.
S: Yes.
h: Two Years?
S: Yes. If only I’d known that, you know.
h: So was this before you met Simon?
S: No, this was after Simon. This was on one of the Simon breaks, where I go and find someone really gorgeous.
h: He must have been blooming jealous!
S: Oh it was brilliant. He lived across the road from me as well, so he could see him coming and going and I’d always make sure that he was in.
h: So how did you meet Brad Pitt? Was he not that famous then?
S: He was just a working actor. He was in Dallas and I didn’t even know him from Dallas because I was a Dynasty fan! You know how you kind of just watched one or the other? But he was Priscilla Presley’s daughter’s boyfriend in Dallas, and I didn’t know who he was at all. He came to the UK - he’d been dating a girl in America, Robin Givens - and asked to meet me.
h: Was this when you were high up in the charts?
S: It was ’88. I was quite prominent then and sort of out there all the time. I’d also been called by Sylvester Stallone’s people and I’m like, “No, no, no thank you.”
h: Your life is amazing!
S: But when I saw the picture of the boy, I was like [gasps] “Okay, I’ll go. Who is he? Get him, get him!” I went on this date with him and we just clicked. I had no decorum, I was like, “Okay, I’ve got a new house, do you want to live with me?” I didn’t have any furniture, I didn’t have any food in the fridge, but I had him so I was happy.
h: When you think of your relationship with him, what do you think of?
S: He was just really fun, and kind of random, you know? I can remember we’d do crazy things, like go out, if we’re trying to go to a movie it would turn in to an imaginary game of cops and robbers. He’d be crawling behind the seats, a bit like Mr and Mrs Smith, I swear! That’s before this movie even came out… rolling and shooting and ducking behind things. I’d kind of just fall in, and I think that’s why he fell for me. Then we’d realise what we were doing and pull ourselves together, and go and sit down and get back to normal again!
h: Was it Simon winding him up that made you split up or did it just run its course?
S: It was the LA thing. Once I’d introduced him on the scene, everybody was after him, and I was quite jealous.
h: That must have been hard.
S: Yeah, and it was girls AND boys. I can remember George Michael thinking he was quite sweet!
h: Everyone cracking on to your boyfriend.
S: And he was prettier than me which was hard as well!
h: I read somewhere that you thought you were a little bit too wild for him and that’s why you broke up?
S: Yeah, I was a bit crazy. I probably wasn’t super romantic, I was possessive, but I wasn’t quite ‘Dinner for Twos’!
h: Where you demanding?
S: No, I just wanted to be with my friends. I was a clubby, party girl, and I wanted my cute boys to come with me.
h: Any song that reminds you of your time with him?
S: I Want Your Sex, George Michael. Let’s just get straight to it!
h: Are you still in touch with him?
S: Not really. Once he got married to Jennifer, it kind of died off. There was an incident where a newspaper had written this fictitious thing where they’d had me describing a night of passion with him, which I’ve never actually done. So I was quite upset about it. He’d just got married to Jennifer Aniston, and I just thought this is so tacky. I did contact him to say look, I didn’t do this, and I don’t know if you want to do something about it, but I can’t afford to. He was great, he got his people on it and he was going to pay my legal fees if I wanted to sue the paper. But it all ended amicably.
h: So does that mean that you’ve got his phone number, that you could text him?
S: He’s contactable, but it’s kind of weird. Unfortunately Brad and I aren’t like Simon and I, I don’t think I’m going t get a second chance!
h: Your decision to adopt children, how did that come about?
S: It wasn’t me trying to be altruistic, it was that I wasn’t able to have children myself.
h: Was that quite a distressing time for you?
S: It was quite distressing. I’m kind of a fighter, so I didn’t sit and stew too long, and then it becomes more altruistic when you realise how many children are in the care system here. Originally I thought I’d go to India, Brazil or something, because my husband’s white, so I thought it would be mixed children. To find out that there are more mixed race and black children in the care system here than any other, it was like, okay, we have to do it here. And it started off wanting one child, ended up being two.
h: What was that experience like for you? It must have been amazing.
S: It’s hilarious, because it’s like living with cartoon characters. They’ve got these funny little voices and they’re so funny and so straight that you genuinely laugh every single day.
h: You were a judge of Grease Is The Word and you worked with Simon on X-Factor. What’s it like working on X-Factor?
S: It’s great fun working on it. I also end up working with the judges a bit on stuff. I got the job because I discovered and mentored Natasha and Daniel Bedingfield separately. I kept finding these kids, Myleene Klass also. I’d found her and also Ragiv, I don’t know if you know him?
h: When you say you’ve found them, is it just because you’ve heard them performing somewhere?
S: Natasha and Daniel were actually kids in my church. I used to manage the choir there, so I’d have to choose who got to sing. These two little kids at the time - I think there were like fourteen and fifteen - and I thought, “They’re very good.” I had them in the choir and gradually I was giving them more and more solo things to do. Daniel was writing, and we’d sit in my car after church and he’d go, “Listen to this song.” I told Simon about him.
h: Simon must love you, you basically do all of Simon’s job!
S: But he didn’t sign him. Hesaid, “Oh we’ll build a group around him,” so we auditioned for this group to put together for him. Then Simon didn’t sign the band, so we took Danny elsewhere, and got him a deal. Then when Natasha happened as well, Myleene, and Ragiv, Simon was like, “You know what, maybe we should work together.”
h: You said you’ve worked quite closely with the X-Factor judges - have you wanted to be one of the judges?
S: I can’t even believe you brought that up Lucie, it’s very painful. I so wanted to be a judge! Every time there was a judge vacancy, as much as I’d be, I’m really sorry you’re going Sharon, but can I be a judge? It was like that. Then when Brian went and then Louis came back, all this stuff, every time there’s been a change, I’ve been there!
h: It should have been you!
S: Chomping at the bit. In fact, that’s one of the songs, It Should Have Been Me. But I have decided that he won’t make me a judge because he knows that I would wipe the floor with him!
h: It sounds like you would actually. There’s always loads of talk about backstage politics and bitching and all that stuff, what is it actually like back stage?
S: As bad as that. No seriously, it is!
h: We should believe what we read?
S: Yeah, it’s pretty hairy. Sometimes they water it down, they smooth it out so that it doesn’t look so bad.
h: So when stuff gets leaked in the press, it is a case of there’s no smoke without fire?
S: Yeah, because you’ve got four massive egos, plus all the contestants. Plus, it being the second biggest show or whatever on TV. Everyone’s a diva, the make-up artists, they’re all divas because they all work on X-Factor.
h: What do you do? What’s your role in all this?
S: Mediating. Seriously I’m the mediator and it’s kind of whatever, whenever, just trying to mediate.
h: You say that you were a bit of a mediator behind the scenes of X-Factor, you seem like you’re quite a chilled out person, where do you get your strength from?
S: I would definitely say that I’m spiritual and that’s helped a lot. But I’m also a labourer, this is my hippy roots creeping through. I do try and stay quite balanced, because otherwise you just add to the drama really.
h: Is there anyone that you turn to for advice? You seem like the kind of person that other people might turn to, to talk to, but who would you talk to if you’re feeling particularly stressed or unhappy about anything?
S: I have my gay husband Igor, who’s quite good! He’s very tolerant, and believe it or not my nanny, my Philippino nanny Nilda. I’m sure she doesn’t even know what I’m talking about, but she just listens, and sometimes it’s not that you need advice, you just need to let off steam.
h: You had your first number 2 record when you were 19, So Macho. What was that like when it went so far up the charts so quickly? How did that influence you?
S: Things were so different then. I remember Simon calling me and telling me to turn on the radio the first time it was played. They’d do this chart run down and they’d be like, “I know at home Sinitta’s waiting to see if she’s, duh duh duh duh,” and you sit there and listen to the charts each week and it was just amazing! But the problem was that the record stayed around forever, I think it was the biggest selling record of the year and we didn’t actually get to number one because we had stupid Lady In Red! [By Chris De Burgh] And then we had Boris Gardiner, who had this other song that was some big sad record that happened at the time. That just kept us off the top, but we stayed in the charts forever but didn’t go to number one. So it’s so sad because now when they do hits of the ‘80s I’m not included because they only do number ones. That’s not nice!
h: Have you still got any of your outfits that you used to wear back then?
S: I have all of them.
h: Is there any other song that reminds you of that time?
S: I think either Feels Like The First Time, because that was an American dance number one for me, and the guy who produced it was Jellybean Benitez who was the same guy who did Madonna’s tracks. If you listen carefully, then you’ll realise that he actually used the same backing track for In To The Groove!
h: Can we definitely see more of Sinitta in the future? What are your plans?
S: I’m going to be doing some more stuff with X-Factor. I’m not allowed to give away what’s happening, but in this next series there’s going to be a bit more of me going on, and also something I’m introducing called the X-Tra Fit Factor, where I’m going to turn the contestants into pop athletes, so they can really compete with the Beyonces, and Britneys, and Christinas.
h: You mean because they need to be able to move about and all that sort of stuff?
S: To move and sing, so you haven’t got the, “Oh well, the vocal wasn’t quite good because I was dancing,” because Beyonce does it and she’s in five inch heels, so it’s possible. Just getting them really groomed, really fit, really healthy, and some other bits happening on X-Tra Factor as well.
