Interview: Leona Lewis - Better in time

Published on Thursday 29 January 2009 12:42

LEONA LEWIS never likes to let herself down by making a fuss. Mostly she's uncomplaining, and if something upsets her she rarely confronts it.

She seems to put all of her emotion into her singing. Which is why, when she is performing, she reaches far inside of herself and pulls out every emotion she's ever had. And that is what touches so many.

This is a woman who has been number one in 35 countries. 'Bleeding Love' sold more than three million digital downloads in the US alone, contributing to it becoming the biggest-selling single of the 21st century by a female artist. She has performed at Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday celebrations. She has sung with Mariah Carey, Beyonc and Rihanna on the 'Just Stand Up to Cancer' track. She represented Great Britain, along with David Beckham, to sing at the Olympics handover ceremony in Beijing.

Whitney Houston's record company mogul and mentor Clive Davis took her under his wing to ensure that her voice would soar across America. It's a beautiful voice, capable of great things, brilliant things. But sadly not capable of being nominated for Best Female Solo Artist at this year's Brit awards. No album. No performance. No recognition from her peers. But she is up for Best Single, which is voted for by the public, and is said to be "thrilled" by the nomination. She would never urge you to vote. She doesn't ask or demand, she's not a diva. I would certainly urge: vote for Lewis – but more of that later.

In my mind, there are two reasons why Lewis is not all over those Brits nominations. Who decides what is great? Who are the taste-makers? And does this Brits committee say that what is popular isn't subtle, isn't edgy, isn't out there? Does it condemn not just a nation, but a world that has put her at number one? Votes from the public won her The X Factor and lost her credibility.

She has always been a woman of quiet determination. She may well have made it without The X Factor. And would that have won her a different kind of applause?

I have met Lewis many times now. The first time was backstage at The X Factor. She was so shy she couldn't look anybody in the eye, even though Rod Stewart and Gary Barlow had said she was a clear winner. She couldn't see that she was in a different league to everyone else. She told me then that singing was all she'd ever wanted to do, but "it's about making music, it's not about being famous".

The last time I met her, she was a well-established world-class superstar. And yet, she has always been the same – self-effacing, sweet and kind. The first thing she invariably asks is how is Mr Love, my cat, who she knows has a crippled leg. Before she wants to talk about herself, she wants to look at pictures of him. She doesn't have an entourage. She eats every colour of M&M. She owns flat shoes, and has never thrown a mobile phone. She does like her water at room temperature because that's about her voice, her craft.

Today she's wearing dark skinny jeans and a nice cotton top, the sort of thing she has always worn. She looks taller than you think she's going to be, and her skin is darkly creamy. People are fussing over her in the studio. They treat her as if she's a diva and with awe, and she gives back the same faltering smile. She doesn't take on that role. Just like she doesn't go to the Ivy. "You don't want to go where photographers are going to be. Not if you want a nice night out," she says, incredulous that some stars would actually court the paparazzi.

She is keeping her feet firmly on the ground and relies on those who have always been close to her to help keep it that way. "I hope that with my family around me and friends that I have always known, I will stay just who I am and be true to myself and not get taken away by all the other stuff," she says.

"There are so many young celebrities that are troubled. I think that's really sad. When I was young, stars like Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston didn't seem like real people. And as I have got older and you read the papers about their personal lives, it seems even sadder that when things happen to them it's blown up to such a big scale because they are in the spotlight."

Lewis and boyfriend Lou Al-Chamaa have been together since they were 17. She's now 23, and has cleverly managed her trajectory to super-stardom so that it affects their relationship as little as possible. Sometimes when he goes to America they don't like his surname, so he ends up in what she calls the quarantine room for a few hours – so no starry treatment there. "I am always back and forth travelling. He works for his dad, who lets him get time off, so he travels with me when he can," she explains.

But it would be wrong to assume that her relationship is some kind of unrealistic, rose-tinted pairing. "Everyone fights. I find it weird when friends say they are with guys and they never argue. I'm like, 'Hello.' I don't remember things we argue about because they're stupid, normal things."

You see, just when you think you might be getting a bit of drama, she grounds it all down again and seems so sensible and so nice, exactly the qualities the Brits academy doesn't vote for. Yet, she says she usually wins the argument. "Because I'm stubborn. He can give as good as he gets but I don't give in."

That stubborn streak has helped her through (and no doubt means that she probably doesn't care about the lack of Brit nominations). She knows from a deep-felt, if at times faltering, belief that she will always be the winner in the end.

If only she had succumbed to the pressures of being 23 and famous a bit more – a nervous breakdown or an eating disorder or a drug habit. That would have made her more popular for a nomination. With this in mind, and being increasingly hounded by photographers, has she not begun to feel the pressure to become super-skinny? "Yes, of course there's a pressure to look good for everyone. My little cousin, who's ten, feels the pressure. My girlfriends feel pressure. It's because of all those images in the media of stick-thin people. It's just not obtainable. I think I have a strong, grounded foundation, so I will never get to the point where it will cause me problems. But, of course, some days I will feel a bit insecure and wonder do I look all right. But you can't subscribe to these pressures because they are not real. I try to eat healthily. I go riding and to the gym. But I don't think about it as looking good; I think about it as being healthy."

Lewis is grateful for what she has and for what she has achieved. She is also aware that because she doesn't do the diva act, there is a perception that she isn't a force to be reckoned with. That's a mistake. "People think I speak softly, and they have me down as a person who would be easy to walk over, but that's not me. I never get shouty but I do speak my mind."

She is especially passionate about causes close to her heart, "I worry about the Asian bears. I'm a big supporter of WSPA (the World Society for the Protection of Animals]. The bears are kept in small cages as big as their body, their stomach cut open, a tube put in and bile extracted – a really painful process. And they keep the bear alive as long as they can just to get the bile. They believe that bear's bile is an important medicine to help with skin problems, but this is totally unfounded. The WSPA has evidence that it doesn't help.

"I'm really angry with people that can do this kind of thing. There was a documentary where a bear was in a tree and they shot it in the face. That made me crazy with anger." Her voice echoes clear and pealing in the studio. Her eyes spark with anger and then tears.

She also practises what she preaches. She never wears leather and even wants to produce her own range of non-leather boots and bags. She would never wear a conflict diamond. Never a Prada or a Jimmy Choo. And even though she's radical in her determination, she doesn't push it on anyone else.

I get the sense that she finds it easier to speak out to protect her friends or animals than herself. Getting upset about an awards ceremony just doesn't seem worthwhile in comparison with other causes. She's frighteningly down to earth when it comes to celebrity. One of her favourite ways of relaxing is to spend an hour or so watching TV. "I love EastEnders but I would never say it's a guilty pleasure. It's not a bad soap, and I don't feel guilty."

At one point, her own life didn't seem so far away from the plotlines of Albert Square. She was born in Hackney, east London. Her father Joe is Guyanese, a part-time DJ who worked with young offenders. Her mother Maria was a ballet teacher who grew up in Wales. Which of her parents is she most like? "Both," she says. "I'm like my mum because she is sensitive and it's easy for us to cry, and I'm like my dad because he's very ambitious."

While Lewis was growing up, her extended family was involved in various dramas and tragedies. One cousin, who she didn't know very well, led a gang that raped a tourist. Her cousin Billie, who she was close to, died from leukaemia at just 14. Lewis sang 'Over the Rainbow' at her funeral. Another cousin has cancer and an auntie MS. She has two brothers, one of whom got a girl pregnant when he was 17 – she later abandoned the child, leaving him as the sole carer. Lewis says simply, "I saw that was really hard for him, and it has made me want to wait a while."

Coming from this sort of background, it was by no means the obvious thing for her to attend stage school – she went to Sylvia Young – but she always knew she wanted to perform. She recalls going to a classmate's house for tea, and that the kitchen was bigger than her family's whole flat. But she was never bothered by that. "There was one girl at school who was really cruel, a bully, but never to the point that it affected me." Typical Lewis, she's very good at not getting affected, or at least taking the hurt and putting it inside of her so that it doesn't come out in anger, viciousness or victimhood. It comes out in song.

Her voice is one-off beautiful. The notoriously critical Simon Cowell says, "We are never going to get another Leona." The X Factor vocal coach Yvie Burnett says, "Her voice has so much emotion in it, it has made me cry many times." Clive Davis told me that her win on The X Factor had very little to do with him signing her. "She auditioned for me cold, and I thought she was a worldwide talent, an incredible vocal range and a God-given gift, and a passion when she sang. It was a no-brainer."

Lewis has come a long way from the shy girl who first started out on The X Factor. Then, she seemed gawky and shrinking from herself. She blossomed in the spotlight and may well have made it without the show, such was her determination to perform.

She could enjoy all the trappings of celebrity lifestyle but she is the kind of girl who would rather do Sport Relief than shopping in Rodeo Drive. In fact, one time I met her by the pool of her Beverly Hills hotel, where she was shooting a video. She ordered a cheese sandwich from a menu that included a white truffle risotto, and I asked her if she was going to all the hip hangouts for young Hollywood. "Actually, no, I'd like to come and visit your cats if you'd let me." And, you know, she sounded as if she meant it.

WINNERS

Simon Cowell The brains behind The X Factor product is the real winner. And while the show's 2008 winner, Alexandra Burke, is alleged to earn only 250 a night on the current sell-out tour, she must have made a packet with her Christmas number one.

Cheryl Cole Following her role on The X Factor judging panel last year, the Girls Aloud singer, herself a reality-show success story, has managed to transform herself from WAG to a one-woman, multi-talented media phenomenon.

Darius Danesh After two attempts, the Glasgow singer finally made his mark on Pop Idol in 2002, finishing third. However, he turned down Simon Cowell's offer to join his record label, choosing instead to record his own work. Now based in the Hollywood Hills, where he lives with his film star girlfriend Natasha Henstridge, his stage roles have included that of Billy Flynn in Chicago and, less successfully, Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind in the West End.

Will Young Young won the first Pop Idol competition, in 2002, and has managed to remain consistently successful – and credible – ever since, achieving eight Brit nominations and, more recently, starring in the film Mrs Henderson Presents and The Vortex at the Royal Exchange Theatre.

Gareth Gates In the same year Will Young won Pop Idol, Gareth Gates overcame his stutter to take second place. However, chart success was fairly short-lived, and in 2006 he appeared in an ITV documentary entitled Whatever Happened to Gareth Gates? Last year, he took part in Dancing on Ice, finishing fourth, and from this month he will be taking over from Lee Mead in the lead for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Ray Quinn Although he was dropped by Sony BMG a year after coming second on The X Factor in 2006, Quinn is currently competing in Dancing on Ice and is a favourite to win.

Paul Potts The operatic mobile phone salesman won Britain's Got Talent in 2007 and was almost immediately embraced by the Americans. There was even talk of making a Hollywood film of his life. He has performed on the same stage as Katherine Jenkins, Jos Carreras and Oprah Winfrey, and last year provided the musical backing for a Japanese advert for throat medicine.

LOSERS

Britney Spears Her appearance on 2008's The X Factor was billed as her big comeback but the singer was criticised for a shambolic performance and accused of miming.

Michelle McManus After winning the second Pop Idol, in 2003, her first single made number one. But the Scot soon became as known for her 22-stone figure as her voice. A small role in The Vagina Monologues, a look at how she lost eight stone on You Are What You Eat and playing an all-singing, all-dancing Virgin Mary in an Edinburgh Festival show are not quite the big time she must have dreamed of.

Shayne Ward The cute, perma-bristled singer won The X Factor in 2005. Hmm, so where is he now? Recording a new album, apparently.

Steve Brookstein With the dubious honour of being the first winner of The X Factor, in 2004, Brookstein was dropped from his record label after just one album. He released a second single on an independent label but it failed to make the top 75. He was most recently seen performing in the Madness-inspired musical Our House.

Chico Slimani The one-time Moroccan goat-herder and stripper was a controversial quarter-finalist in The X Factor in 2005. His debut single 'It's Chico Time' made number one but the follow-ups couldn't dent the top 20. In June 2007, he appeared as a cabaret act on the P&O Portsmouth to Bilbao ferry, alongside Journey South and Steve Brookstein.

Leon Jackson The X Factor winner of 2007, from Whitburn, achieved the predictable number-one spot with his debut single 'When You Believe'. But success has been harder to come by since. His 2008 album Right Now entered the charts at number four but disappeared three weeks later.

Hear'Say Less than two years after winning Popstars, the band split up. Little has been heard of the two male members since, though Kym Marsh has carved a successful career as an actress, with a regular gig on Coronation Street, while Myleene Klass is the new presenter for the makeover show Ten Years Younger.