In her first Jodie Marsh Has Her Say column for Closer Online, Jodie Marsh opens up about the dark side of fame, and why she wants to give Louis Tomlinson a hug (but not in a creepy way!)…
I want to talk about Louis Tomlinson and what he’s gone through recently. Mainly because I myself have been through both an arrest AND having a paparazzi right up in my face, but also because I feel like he’s having a really rough time of late and the poor guy deserves a break.
Let’s take it back to the beginning: Louis becomes a part of One Direction. This catapults him into worldwide fame and stupendous amounts of money. Now, while this seems a good thing (who would complain about that, you think), it DOES come with a whole host of down-sides.
I’m not even half as famous or rich as him, but I can vouch for the fact that as soon as you are even a little bit famous or “wealthy”, or even just successful at something, you suddenly find that everyone around you changes.
You suddenly have more “friends” (not real ones, but people who want something from you). Suddenly everyone is really nice to your face but VILE to you online when hidden behind the safety of a computer or phone screen (and this alone makes you go slightly crazy as you end up not knowing what’s even real anymore as one day you think you’re God’s gift, and the next you believe that internet troll who says you’re hideously ugly and have a big nose).
Suddenly you get asked for lots of “favours” and people start to think they “own” you and act like you owe THEM something even though you’ve never met them. They think nothing of interrupting a family meal to ask for a photo, they demand that you help them by turning up to an event (and bad mouth you when you don’t), and you become the token celeb at any event you do go to (including normal things like family weddings).
Basically, your life is never “normal” again.
Now, please don’t get me wrong, it isn’t all bad; far from it. Being famous and rich is obviously a good thing, and I wouldn’t change my life now for anything, BUT it did take me a good ten years to come to terms with my own fame, to understand it and, most importantly, to ENJOY it.
That leads me onto my next point; I’m 38, Louis is 25! He’s been famous from a very young age and is probably not even close to the understanding and acceptance that I’m at with fame (and his situation is made worse by the fact that he’s a billion times more famous than me, and is confronted with screaming, hysterical girls everywhere he goes! Blimey, at least MY fans have a degree of etiquette and politeness… well, most of them. There’s always that one guy who tweets you photos of his own penis).
And Louis has had one hell of a bumpy ride in the past 18 months: from the birth of his son Freddie in January 2016 (who to my knowledge, wasn’t planned - apologies if he was!) – a tough thing for a young lad of his age to deal with (and all credit to him for stepping up and being a father). Then, at the end of last year he tragically lost his wonderful mother Johannah to cancer, and shortly after he separated from his girlfriend of one year, Danielle Campbell.
And now there’s this latest saga of him being arrested at LAX airport after he tried to get a paparazzi out of his and his girlfriend’s faces, only to then see (from what I can see on the video) that his girlfriend was being attacked (or certainly held up against a wall) by a group of so called fans – at which point he steamed in to protect her.
Now I ask you: WHAT has this poor lad done wrong?!
In the early days of my fame I was chased everywhere I went by paparazzi; they waited outside my house, followed me in cars and on bikes, and they generally made life quite difficult. The law changed some time back so that paps are no longer allowed to take pictures on your private property (which is great as it means they no longer come to your house), however if you live on a street in London say, the minute you step onto a public pavement, you are fair game.
For years I’ve enjoyed a normal private life living in the countryside where the paps leave me alone, and I get to post my own pics on my own social media - it’s a win-win for me. However, one place the paparazzi are still absolute demons to me is Barbados. I’ve been going there since I was 5-years-old and Barbados to me feels like a second home, so much so that I often go there alone. Over the years it’s become the celeb hot-spot (cheers Simon Cowell for ruining my perfectly peaceful get-away!), and is now teeming with paparazzi.
The last time I was there holidaying alone, I was hounded all day, every day by paps. All I do when I’m away is read my kindle on the sun lounger and the only time I move is to get a bottle of water, so quite why they need to be there all day I don’t know, but I can tell you, it’s VERY uncomfortable having them watch your every move.
Imagine as a woman; you’re not quite beach-ready or in your best shape and you’re nervous about putting a bikini on anyway, and then factor in that someone with a very powerful high-res lens is going to be snapping EVERYTHING you do. It’s enough to send anyone mad! Then, as if all that wasn’t enough to contend with, there was one incident that really frightened me. I got up one day from where I was lying on the beach and walked the 20 yards back into my hotel complex to get a drink. As I did so, one of the paps jumped up and ran from her position until I came face to face with her INSIDE the walls of the hotel. She got in front of me, and her camera was (I kid you not), mere inches from my face as she walked backwards with her finger held down on the button, snapping off some 10 frames per second. She was so close I nearly actually walked into her, and I have never felt so intimidated or annoyed.
Technically all the beaches in Barbados are public property, so they can do what they like there, but it’s up to the individual hotels as to how they deal with them (most wouldn’t allow them in, full stop). Now, the day this happened to me, it was in front of a good 50 people (guests and staff around the pool and bar), and I was alone there. No one came to my rescue, no one tried to stop the pap (including the hotel staff), and no one asked me if I was ok. I wasn’t ok. It probably doesn’t sound like much, but believe me it was. It was the fact that she was so close to me and SO in my face, and that I had nowhere to go! And also the humiliation of everyone watching and probably assuming that I loved it (I didn’t). I was there as a normal holiday maker, NOT as THE Jodie Marsh, and I certainly wasn’t there to “work”.
In fact, one of the reasons I post so many photos on my Twitter and Instagram when I’m away is so that it makes the pap pictures worthless – if the Daily Mail can pick up pics of me in a bikini for free from my social media then they won’t buy the pap ones and I might actually get some peace when away!
I was trying to keep a very low profile within the hotel itself and would go and grab a lounger very early morning (German style!) and stay there all day with a hat pulled down over my face so as NOT to draw attention to myself. When the pap did what she did, it not only caused a huge embarrassing scene for me, but it attracted attention to me (for all the wrong reasons), and it singled me out from all the other holiday makers. Suddenly I was THE Jodie Marsh with an entourage of paparazzi and I became the gossip of the hotel. I could have died from the shame of it all. I was gutted that the hotel didn’t step in to help (I did go on to complain to the hotel manager and eventually even moved hotels to try and evade the relentless paps – they found me within a day but the new hotel didn’t allow them inside so I stayed by the pool, too frightened to go onto the beach).
I was also gutted that I had been made to feel so scared and vulnerable. That incident stayed with me so much that it has made me not want to go back to Barbados. When I go away it is to relax and recharge and escape the graft and stress and monotony of every day life and work (like ANY person who goes on holiday).
Now, imagine you had to deal with that incident EVERY DAY OF YOUR LIFE… because that’s basically what those One Direction boys are dealing with: paparazzi surrounding them wherever they go and getting right up in their face. It’s not nice as a one off, but if it happened every day it would drive you to despair!
Louis is fresh after the death of his mother, and my guess is that having already asked the pap politely to back off, he fronted him in that way as the pap WOULDN’T back down. And you know what, even if he just fronted him out of the blue without any warning, is this 25-year-old man supposed to stay calm and controlled at ALL times? Is he not allowed a minor blip in his ever-composed exterior? Is he perfect? Is anybody?!
As far as I’m concerned, Louis had every right to confront an annoying paparazzi. When you really think about it, it’s kind of like having a mad stalker who follows you everywhere, taking pictures of everything you do. AND, people forget, no matter how famous you are, you’re still a normal human! So therefore it IS weird being followed by paps, no matter how incredibly famous you are. It’s not something you ever really get used to (unless you’re Katie Price and you love it and set up cringey pap shots everywhere you go!).
Moving on to Louis’ girlfriend being attacked (for that is certainly what it looked like to me); what decent, caring man WOULDN’T want to protect his girlfriend in that situation? I actually think Louis was very restrained in what he did – I know men who would have started knocking people out left, right and centre (admittedly, I just might know the wrong types of men!), but it’s like the old saying goes: “hurt me, I can deal with it, hurt my family and you’ll regret it.”
Most people have an inner primal protection mode when it comes to someone they love being hurt; it kicks in without us even being able to control it. If I was walking down the street and someone called me a name I would laugh it off; call my mum a name however and I’m going to want a row. It’s not something I would even be aware of, the red mist would descend. It’s built into us. From what I can see on the video, Louis does nothing more than ANY of us would do if a loved one was being attacked, threatened (or in this case, held up against a wall).
And all of this happened because Louis is a global star (and because he clearly has shit - or no – security).
After this horrible incident, which would have left Louis and Eleanor scared and shaking, Louis then gets arrested. I’ve been there. It’s VILE! For someone who has NEVER done more than get a speeding fine, it’s the scariest thing in the world to be kept in a cell and to be interviewed under arrest. Not only that, but the whole time all you can think is “shit, that’s my work in America stuffed,” as if you’re charged with a crime you may not be permitted to enter America again. Most of my documentaries are filmed in the USA and for Louis, he NEEDS to be able to go there for his career too. It’s vital. So all this is going through your head at the same time as the confusion of feeling like you’ve done nothing wrong and that they’ve arrested the wrong person!
And all of this on top of the stressful and devastating few years he’s had in his personal life. Poor, poor Louis, I feel for him, I really do. I want to hug him (not in a creepy way). I want him to know that there ARE good people out there (because right now he’s probably hating humans), and I want him to know that it will all be all right in the end. Karma is real and when all is said and done, the good people always come out on top.
"But you and Louis asked for the fame, you WANTED it!” I hear you say. Yes my loves, we did, but we didn’t bloody know that with it would come a big fat dose of lunacy, opportunists, crazies and stalkers, did we? We didn’t know we’d end up trusting no one. We didn’t know it would change everyone around us (even sometimes, our own families), we didn’t know it would send us over the edge at times. Oh no; WE thought we’d be sitting pretty in our mansions forever more with our perfect lives, feasting on champagne and lobster, surrounded by wonderful caring people who don’t want anything but our amazing company because our friendship is just so strong and real! We thought it was the dream! We thought money and fame would bring us everything our hearts desire. And you know what? The one thing we all really need in life is the true, deep, unconditional love of a mother or father or partner, and that is something money can’t buy.
It’s something Louis knows only too well, and that’s the one thing he’s just lost. So please give him a break, people. Louis needs love and support.
Do you agree with Jodie that Louis Tomlinson should be given a break? Do you think fame is worth it, considering all the downsides? Let us know on Facebook or Twitter
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