trigger warning: rape, murder, drug addiction, plastic surgery
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We are experiencing a reality based on a thin veneer of lies and illusions.
– Bill Hicks
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“Well Cindy, it’s been a very difficult year for you hasn’t it?” asks the show’s anchor in a well-practised sensitive tone. The presenter assumes an upright posture as she delivers this ubiquitous question in Cindy’s life, and allows the drug-addicted, suicidal, bi-polar soap opera actress a tactful pause so that she can give one of those choked-with-emotion reactions that producers crave.
“It’s been a nightmare. Honestly. One thing after another,” says Cindy sniffling. She uses her forefinger to wipe away the droplet of a nascent tear under her right eyelid and smudges the mascara in the process. The suntan cultivated from a recent ‘therapeutic’ getaway to Ibiza cannot disguise her facial wrinkles, and the peroxide highlights cannot obscure the silver strands of hair so feared by aging, traumatized celebrities trying to keep their careers afloat with the buoyancy of bogus youth.
“I’ve had a miscarriage, I’ve lost my man, I’ve lost my house and now I’m homeless, I’ve been hounded by the papers who’ve been writing all kinds of nasty lies about me.”
Cindy’s tone briefly sharpens when she mentions the UK print media, and then resumes its plaintive pitch as the catalogue of personal disaster resumes.
“I’ve had to have surgery on my right cheek after my Botox job went pear-shaped and left me looking like Frankenstein.”
Cindy discloses this in the Essex accent that defined her in her fruitful acting years and consolidated her popularity and fan-base some twenty years prior long before the cocaine took hold and her problems cascaded. Despite the grim humour of the statement, the studio audience members maintain respectful, tight-lipped demeanours and do not giggle. They simply watch impassively as if in a daze, while the co-hosts of Feisty Females, three middle-aged women in bright clothes who had B-List celebrity careers in the past, cross their arms in sympathetic solidarity.
“And, if it’s OK to ask, can I ask? I know this is a difficult time for you but are you back on drugs Cindy?” asks Roz Mansfield, a woman in her fifties with a wholesome home-counties accent. She was a morning radio sensation for over a decade in the nineties, generating lurid headlines of her own with the choreographed, contrived montages of hedonistic excess that monopolized tabloid pages and kept her agent and handlers satisfied.
Cindy accepts the question, although it is clear it pains her from the intake of breath required to answer it. However, answer it she must, for she is contractually obliged to bare her soul in the televisual way. She grimaces, biting hard on her bottom lip.
“Yes, I’ve relapsed. I am now using again folks.” She expels the confession, and a murmur runs through the audience, who are obliging to the REACT NOW prompt card held aloft by the studio assistant out of sight of both the viewer and Cindy.
“I’m ashamed of myself. I feel like I’ve let everybody down. It just feels like I’m in a vicious circle, and I’m messing everything up,” says Cindy sobbing. Her eyes are bleary and bloodshot, and her haggard face with its swollen right cheek looks ready to cave in from the strain of Botox, cocaine and self-destructive urges.
“I’m really, really sorry,” says Cindy and the tears start to flow.
“That’s all right,” says Janet Langford, the main host, in a soothing tone.
Cindy buries her chin in her chest and clasps the bridge of her nose as she weeps. Although distressed, she remembers not to tilt her head backwards so as to reveal her disintegrated nasal septum to the world. It might upset some viewers, and we have to consider the sensitivity of their feelings, the director had told her.
The camera dwells on Cindy’s pink, teary face and then pans back to include the co-hosts all turned towards her, all concerned, attentive and non-judgemental. They are the proxy therapists of new millennial media: personalities with once ‘colourful’, reckless and irresponsible lives who were once marketable now repackaged as sensitive souls who listen.
“There, there Cindy, it’s going to be OK,” says Janet putting her arm around the stricken celebrity.
Roz Mansfield pulls two tissues from the box of Kleenex, one of the show’s sponsors, and hands them to Cindy, who thanks her.
“You’ve got to stop apologising that you’re a drug addict Cindy,” says Kerry Glazed, former 90s wild child, pop singer and bankrupt who achieved financial salvation thanks to the reality television bandwagon. After winning an edition of Celebrity Surveillance State in 2011 she was awarded a shopping channel hosting contract, fast-moving consumer goods TV commercial cameos and the contacts with which to launch a clothing line.
“You’ve got to start loving yourself girl,” says the entertainer, entrepreneur and part-time human rights activist stridently in her Mancunian accent.
“And, at the end of the day, if people don’t get you, or accept you for who you are, then they should just bugger off!”
This peroration draws a peal of applause from the spectators, which seems spontaneous only to the millions tuned in to this morning dose of culture. The cue-card man holds the STOP card, and the reaction is controlled accordingly.
“Thanks hun,” says Cindy. “I’m choked, honest, that means the world to me.”
Glazed, who is sitting next to her, reaches over and gives her a sisterly hug. As they embrace, the cameras zoom in for fleeting facial responses from random audience members as the co-hosts make cooing, motherly noises as if Cindy is a five-year old child who has grazed her knee.
“Yeah, and don’t forget everyone at this table has been through some pretty tough times,” says Langford.
“That’s right, there’s me at 24 with the world at my feet with my album getting to number one. I’m on talk-shows, the money’s flooding in and suddenly all the success goes to my head. I’m off my head partying all the time, doing drugs and before I know it, I’m broke.”
There is a pause in Kerry’s personal calamity clichés, and the camera cuts to audience women nodding their heads in unison.
“I want so much to turn my life around,” says Cindy placing her damp tissue on the table, before adding, in a tearful voice, “again.”
“Don’t forget your cuppa Cindy,” says Roz handing Cindy her complimentary guests’ mug of tea bearing the show’s logo.
Cindy clasps the cup in both hands and gives an appreciative smile.
“Keep calm and drink tea,” says Cindy quoting the t-shirt meme, and Roz chuckles.
Janet gives a start, as the producer’s irritable voice pipes into the microphone in her right ear.
“Get her into rehab. Do it quickly! We’ll split her career development proceeds with Channel 7 and be credited for creating a sober Cindy. But for god’s sake pull your finger out and start making her appearance on Strictly Celebrity Rehab happen, or we’ll miss the chance to create another cash-cow with bloated teats that can be milked forever. Just imagine if she cleans up her act and auditions for Celebrity Humiliation Island or Celebrity Police State. We could partially own her again, and make a shedload of money.”
Janet nods, and closes her mouth to disguise her agitation at the demanding, delicate task she has to undertake. She does this so skillfully it looks to the viewer as if she is simply following what Cindy says.
“Come on! To hell with any conflicts, we can square those away with her scummy agent later, and we know how to incentivise that creep don’t we?” snaps the programming maestro.
“Cindy,” says Langford. “You know the model and actress we had on the show recently, Jodie Myers?”
“Yeah, wasn’t she the one whose liposuction went wrong, and she had to take the doctor to court?” says Cindy, in a quizzical tone.
“Yes, Jodie was in a bad place a few months ago. The pressures started getting to her, and, like yourself, she started using again and had racked up huge drug debts.”
Cindy nods rapidly, and fidgets as she listens. The lust for cocaine is so great that she wants to walk off the set, so she can make an urgent call to her supplier. She notes the measly milligrams in the plastic wrap in the inside pocket of her jacket that needs replenishment. She doesn’t want to be here. Damn her agent and his twisted PR strategies!
“Well,” says Janet. “We put her in touch with the Strictly team and, I don’t know if you saw the show but it turned her life around.”
“Yeah. That’s right, I saw that,” says Cindy in a perkier tone. It’s as if the studio tea, soothing words and nebulous, inestimable love from members of her fan-base watching have put a Band Aid on the gaping gash of her soul.
“She’s back on TV isn’t she? I heard she’s now got her own shopping channel flogging dildos!” Cindy beams as the sentence is broadcast, and the studio audience gives an unprompted collective gasp followed by a giggle.
“Cindy! Really!” says Langford with mock reproach, while grinning.
“They like my wicked side,” says Cindy, staring into the audience with a maniacal expression. She has started to jerk her head to one side at regular intervals, and to sniff.
“Stop pissing around Janet and land this fish, dammit! We’ve only got three minutes to commercial break, and then we’ve got Lisa Loud coming on after to update us on her rehab, excess skin removal surgery and her boyfriend’s latest prison sentence. Celebrity distress is a profitable commodity, but not when opportunities are missed,” shrieks the producer into Janet’s right ear.
Janet looks at Cindy, and says gently, “Are you ready for therapy, Cindy? We have the right people who can help you put your life back together. Will you take part in Strictly Celebrity Rehab?”
Fidgeting in her seat, Cindy swallows emotion, and her pride, and remembers her agent’s advice.
“Thank you so much, yes I will. Thank you.” Tears roll down her cheeks as the hosts reach over to hug her, and the audience delivers applause on cue.
“One of the first things I do when I meet a new client is establish a relationship, a kind of rapport so that we can trust each other, so let’s talk about you Cindy.” Marion Hope, the famous host, life-coaching entrepreneur extraordinaire and alleviator of celebrity drug addictions speaks in a slow, deliberate and nearly hypnotic tone.
“OK,” says Cindy, and she gives a tentative nod. She is sober and drug-free today, and paying close attention. She has a new hair-style, a glossy bob adopted through contractual coercion; her agent negotiated very good terms for this five-part ‘soul barer’, which will include a multitude of lucrative options if the viewing figures exceed projections, provided she agrees to model a new cut styled especially for celebrities collaborating in career resuscitations.
“Tell me about your life,” says Hope. Hope has been hosting Strictly Celebrity Rehab for over two years, and has, off the back of it, launched a billion-pound life- coaching empire, Dream Achiever, featuring her trademarked neuro-linguistic programming techniques. She also has a profitable franchise of drug rehabilitation clinics around the country.
“Well, from as early as I can remember, I was always the provider for my entire family,” says Cindy looking into the camera.
“I’ve been working from the age of three,” she adds with subtle bitterness in her voice.
Hope frowns at the statement, and nods earnestly to convey sincerity, just as her own coaches have trained her to do for six-hundred pounds per hour.
“When I was just a toddler my mum and dad put me forward for auditions, you know, some agents said I had star quality, you know? And then, when I was a teenager I was doing commercials non-stop and the money and attention kept flooding in and it was difficult to keep my feet on the ground.” Cindy smiles wryly at the recollection, thinking of all the money her parents stole and squandered in her name and the acrimony it caused and the tabloid copy it generated. She has not spoken to her parents in decades.
“And is that when you started using drugs?” asks Hope redundantly.
“Yeah.”
In the corner of the screen the co-hosts of Feisty Females sit on a garish TV studio sofa in another part of London via a live link, looking concerned and attentive. Their presence is not explained to the viewer, but it seems reasonable to assume their roles are supportive sisters once the emotional abscess of Cindy’s past has been lanced by Marion’s surgical questioning. The broadcast is also going out on the channel’s website, with a specially configured chat feed feature set up so that viewers may play their vicarious supporting keyboard roles in the psychodrama.
“I was young, and I got mixed up with the wrong kind of people,” says Cindy as her voice thickens with emotion.
“There must have been a lot of temptations at that age,” says Marion employing one of her counselling clichés. Boy these lines get old, and what a crock it all is—money for old rope queen is all I am—but god it pays so well she thinks, grateful that her thoughts are not audible, or appearing in captions for millions of those gormless viewers to see.
“Yeah. Especially at the nightclubs and show-business events in London,” says Cindy, thinking of the creeps galore who loitered in the shadowy recesses of those nineties venues. Those sweaty hands, that gin-and- tonic breath and those sweet-talking predators with money and connections groping her in the darkness. As she speaks, she curses the subject embargoes imposed by the contract that her odious, perverted agent agreed to.
The events she cannot describe, the people she cannot name, the places she cannot go. No testimony would be allowed, only the tacky sensationalizing of her plight and exploitation of emotional capital. Well, not tonight, she resolves. No more concealment.
“But drugs are just like booze aren’t they?” she says looking Marion in the eyes. Her celebrity counsellor detects challenge in the tone, and a shimmer of vulnerability goes through her as she considers whether her famously ‘difficult’ client has somehow found out about Marion Hope’s as yet unpublicised drinking problem. Cameras zoom in on Marion’s surgically enhanced, forty-five year old face to capture the frisson.
“They just numb the pain.”
“What kind of pain?” asks Hope.
“Well how about being gang-raped at age fourteen for starters?”
There is an intake of breath from Hope, and she shifts in her chair. She looks flustered. Following this, there is a split-second delay as the gasp from the studio audience accompanying the Feisty Females across London is heard. Each feisty female grimaces at the revelation, and Roz Mansfield reaches for a tissue from the prominently placed Kleenex box. Multiple cameras combine to give a montage of audience reaction, showing the rows of middle-aged women shaking their heads and looking sombre.
“What? Are you so naïve? A television presenter and you don’t know how things work in this filthy industry?” sneers Cindy. “After we’d finished shooting a scene for The Young Tearaways the director was supposed to drive me home. The creep convinced me there were some important people I needed to meet first. People I could learn from. Big cheeses who could make me an even bigger star when I grew up. They had heard all about me, and couldn’t wait to meet me, apparently.” Cindy spits out the words with venom.
“So, we arrive at his big, plush house and he takes me by the arm into his living room and before I know it I’m offered a spiked alcoholic drink and cigarettes. When I wake up I’m naked on a bed and there are twelve naked men standing around me. They are physically aroused and licking their lips like wolves and they look really greedy and arrogant. Then I recognize Jimmy Saville—it’s so surreal—standing at the foot of the bed with that crazy grin and glint in his eye.”
Marion, unable to process the revelation, simply opens her mouth while the Feisty Females cover theirs in unison.
“Cindy, I—”
“Funny, I just knew he was going to fix it for me but not in the way clueless Joe Public understood watching good old household name, everyone’s favourite naughty uncle Jimmy on the telly.”
Cindy gazes out into television’s voyeuristic galaxy, aware of the fuse leading to the warehouse of semantic dynamite that she has just lit. The desire for truth is too strong to restrict her words now however. Nothing is going to stop her.
“They nearly tore me to pieces,” says Cindy gulping with terror at the memory. “It lasted for hours, and I thought I was going to die. They violated me in every way possible.”
“Wow! This is SENSATIONAL! This is AMAZING!”
The screeching timbre of the Strictly Celebrity Rehab producer’s voice in Marion’s right ear causes her to flinch.
“Great work! This is exceeding all expectations. Keep the old junkie slapper talking. This’ll send Twitter into meltdown and put the channel on the world map. The revenue we could get could set you up for life Marion—so keep this juicy gravy train misery coming. More shock! More horror! More humiliation! Bring it on!”
Marion nods once quickly in coded TV sign language to show she’s got the message, unaffected by the indecent excitement in the producer’s voice.
“I was in pain for days,” says Cindy.
Her interviewer says this was terrible.
“Yeah, I thought nothing could be worse, or more humiliating, than the days when my uncle—the one who got me into showbusiness—started molesting me at twelve behind my parents’ back,” says Cindy in a faltering voice.
“What happened after this?” asks Marion.
“Oh, it goes to another level. I’m taken to parties,” says Cindy using air-quotes. “These are in very grand houses with lots of very rich people there. Also, actors, media people and millionaire businessmen—you know, the ones who get knighthoods and write newspaper columns.”
Cindy ignores Marion’s raised eyebrows and continues: “At these parties there were mountains of cocaine on tables—just like in Scarface—and dark rooms with cameras and horrible equipment you cannot imagine. We are all drugged—”
“What do you mean we?” interrupts Marion.
“I’m with about fifty other kids, girls and boys, some runaways and orphans I think, chauffeured to these places in those tinted window limos celebrities use. I’d never seen them before, but I’ll never, ever forget their faces.”
The Feisty Females in the little box in the right-hand corner of the screen have suddenly turned pale, as if their pallid faces and dazed expressions express a recollection of an alarming personal experience triggered by Cindy’s story.
“We were led into dark rooms with candles, black drapes on the walls and pentagrams on the floor. All these people in black robes with pointy hoods placed us around the pentagram and recited this creepy chant. We were then passed around like candy and raped for hours, and some of the kids were so badly injured they were just taken away and never seen again.”
Cindy is trembling and looking into herself. She folds her arms tightly, as if trying to cocoon herself from the horror of the memory.
“And then there were the sacrifices.”
“Shut this conversation down—NOW!” The producer’s bellowed command almost punctures Marion’s right eardrum, and she winces. However, for once her dependable obedience to her paymasters and franchise enablers falters. Cindy’s words have woken her from a moral coma, and she suddenly feels the need to do the right thing as opposed to the lucrative one. She pulls the earpiece out, and it droops despondently on its flexed wire like the bud of a dying flower. With a little nod, she prompts Cindy to continue as the voice of the producer persists from the microphone like a belligerent bee.
Viewers get forty-five seconds of Cindy’s account of a ritualistic murder circle whose members include the illustrious and powerful before the screen goes blank for a few seconds and is replaced by a captioned apology for technical difficulties. A minute later an announcer tells all tuned in that unfortunately, they are unable to return to the scheduled broadcast. They are offered a re-run of Celebrity Surveillance State instead, and this is where viewers’ attention is directed.
Cindy’s on-screen meltdown is given cursory comment online, with a few mid-career celebrities credentialed by five-figure Twitter followings cultivating belief that she should be sectioned under the mental health act. Two months later she is found dead of a suspected drug overdose in her bedsit in Dartford. Marion Hope’s contract with Channel 7 is abruptly terminated, with a decline in her professionalism caused by drinking and substance abuse cited by the Yahoo celebrity reporters as a cause. Her life-coaching empire disintegrates, and she soon declares bankruptcy while a slew of celebrity magazines, with primary-colour covers, narrate her ‘shocking addictions’ in libellous exclusives. Strictly Celebrity Rehab, despite declining viewing figures, continues churning out reformed, marketable celebrities. However, some now watch more closely.
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Feature photo “Mirror” by dualdflipflop on Flickr