Fierce (13 page)

Boys can be real shits at times. I started dating a guy when I was fourteen. I think he was the first guy I kissed. I can't really remember, which shows just how memorable it was! It was all a bit childish really and it wasn't serious. We'd only been going out for a couple of weeks when he dumped me in front of everyone in the playground. His reason? He said I was fat. That really bloody hurt. He then started spreading these horrible rumours around school about me, like saying I was thick or something equally ridiculous. I went home from school one night really upset that this guy had been mean to me.

The next day, my mum turned up at school – I wasn't expecting to see her. The guy who'd dumped me was hanging out at the basketball court and she marched over. She tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around and she said, ‘If you don't leave my daughter alone and stop saying nasty lies about her, I'm going to chop your dick off and shove it down your throat.'

It would be fair to say that no guy at school said horrible things about me again after that.

I
WAS
fifteen when I started to become sexually aware and I began to realise that boys were cool and not disgusting. We were all at Ozzfest. When we were on the tour we were all on different buses.
Quite a lot of the teenagers were on our bus and anyone who had a teenage daughter or son would join us – it was chaos!

All the bands would have a different bus – there were loads of them. Each bus had a number. That was just for organisational reasons. Every year, we would put all the numbers into a hat, pick out a number and sleep in someone else's bus for the night. It was a great way of getting to know different people.

On this particular year, we played the game and I got the same bus as this guy who I really fancied and was in one of the bands that was performing. He was about seventeen or eighteen. We somehow ended up sleeping in the same bunk. You have to remember that I'd done a lot of my growing up on tour hanging out with the boys. So it wasn't a big deal for me to innocently share someone's bunk. But that soon changed …

We were lying there and he turned to me and asked, ‘Has anyone ever licked your pussy?'

At this point, I'd never really kissed a boy properly. That word really frightened me – I don't fucking have a cat between my legs! There had been the guy at school, but we'd just pecked. My head was in the romantic clouds.

I said, ‘What?' I didn't realise what he was talking about.

He wouldn't shut up. He kept saying, ‘I love how you're so beautiful.'

And I was like, ‘What the fuck are you talking about?'

Then the penny dropped and I thought, ‘Oh my God, he's talking about wanting to lick my fanny. Get me the hell out of here.'

I jumped straight out of the bunk and got into Jack's. I was absolutely mortified.

I still see this person to this day and now it's funny. It definitely wasn't then.

Some really fucked-up things happened to me on tour and some really amazing things – I guess that was one of the more fucked-up things.

W
HAT
I've always found funny is that older men are attracted to me. I can't figure out why. I've never been one of those girls who's walked around and said to some older woman, ‘Hmmm, yeah, I bet I could have your husband.'

I like young and fresh. I'm not into old, grey and crusty. One of the reasons why some older guys might be attracted to me is because I've always been able to speak my mind – I'm way too old for my years. I think they like the idea of having a young girlfriend who can talk to them on the same level – either that or they don't want someone with saggy tits!

There was one time when I was nineteen when my dad and I were at a party. We were literally standing there holding hands when this guy in his forties came over and cupped my breasts in his hands. My dad whispered to me, ‘Right, Kelly. That's it. We're going home.' Dad knew he couldn't do anything about it because it would make matters worse.

When I was at school, I always attracted the geeks in the older years. It was usually the computer guys. Why? None of the other guys at school found me attractive. I knew that I wasn't going to find my one and only true love in high school, that's for sure.

One thing I really hated about going to school in America was that everyone is divided into groups. You've got the cool kids, the rich kids,
the jocks, the stoners, the nerds … Me? I would be with the fat kids. Me, Molly and Tali would hang out together and try not to give a shit about the others. I was the only British girl at school, so I did stand out, but I didn't fancy any of the guys and I hated, hated the way that everyone was judged just because of the group they were in. I didn't fucking care! I didn't want to just hang around with people in one group. Who does that?

Actually, something I've always tried to do is to stay friends with everyone. Today I live by the same rule. Adulthood doesn't stop the petty arguments that can happen between friends, but I always keep well out of them. I don't want to get involved in other people's shit. I don't want to know. If someone wants my advice, fine. But I don't like the whole ‘He said, she said' drama. It's absolute bullshit and I switch off.

I was never one of those girls who wanted to impress the boys. I didn't slap on the make-up before school or strut about in the classroom to get some guy's attention. That just wasn't me.

For a long time, and I think it's because I grew up on the road with my father and a bunch of guys, I used to look at relationships from a male point of view. I had a bit of a man's approach to going out with someone. Normally, when a couple break up, you would expect the girl to keep calling or be upset – if she wasn't the one to end it. But the guy would not give a shit. Even if the girl does the dumping, guys tend to have this macho image they want to protect and so try to move on quickly and not show they're bothered. I was a bit like that. But that all changed when I started to have proper relationships.

The first time I had sex I was sixteen, but I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready at all. I'd been going out with this guy for six months. He was eighteen, so he had his own apartment. We'd met in a club one night. Honestly, I slept with him because I thought it would make him stay with me. I sensed we might split up. That was such a stupid thing to do. I was sober, it wasn't particularly planned, but I'd sort of thought
I should if we stayed together and it just happened one night. I was so nervous and worried.

The main thing was I just wasn't prepared for all the emotions and feelings that come with having sex with someone for the first time. To make matters worse, he dumped me the next day. He never spoke to me again. He dumped me because he wanted to be with someone else. Whether I'd had sex with him or not, he was always going to do that. I wish I'd waited.

It affected me so much that I didn't have sex again for a year. I couldn't bear to go through all the upset. Sex is not just about the physical act. As soon as you have sex, you have to think about having a cervical smear. It can detect the cells that could make you susceptible to cancer.

I had my sister, Aimee, to look out for me! I'm not sure if I'm grateful or not. Once, she booked an appointment with a gynaecologist to have my fanny checked – but didn't tell me. I only found out when I was with my mum on one of her shopping sprees in the jewellery store Tiffany &. Co. in Beverly Hills. I had my mobile on speakerphone when the call came through from the doctor's receptionist, who had called to confirm my appointment. It was announced to the whole of the store. I was so embarrassed. And then I was bloody annoyed. My fanny is no one's business. Not even my father's for that matter. As soon as he heard about it, he started questioning me in the kitchen about whether I'd had sex or not. There are some things you don't want your parents to know about.

I think it was really difficult for Mum to let go and accept that we were all growing up. She was so, so proud of us all. But her ‘babies' had become teenagers. We'd all become more independent but even so, when I was fourteen, Mum still insisted on driving me everywhere. She'd never let me walk. She would drop me off and then tell me to call her and she'd come and pick me up. Sometimes it was embarrassing.

Mum has always been a real mum's
mum. Yes, my mum and dad are incredibly successful. It would kill me if I tried to emulate the kind of success they've had in their careers. Really, I couldn't. Sometimes I panic when I have to fill out a form and I get to the bit when it says: ‘What's your occupation?' I never know what to put. But I think that if you asked Mum and Dad what they'd count as their biggest achievement, they'd say, ‘Our children.' Mum would probably put it down as her occupation too!

My mum loved being at home with her babies. But the trouble was we were all in our teens and growing up quickly. We wanted to do our own stuff with our friends. Mum would always be hovering in the doorway of my bedroom desperate to join in. It was even worse when my friends came over. Mum loved being one of the girls. I just used to find it so embarrassing. She would come and lie on my bed next to my friends and join in all the conversations about make-up and boys. Stuff you really don't want your mum to know about.

I was always saying to her, ‘Get out, Mum.' Molly and Tali sometimes couldn't believe how abrupt I was being to my mum. But that just sums up everything about living in Los Angeles.