X Factor superstar: Leona Lewis on fame, fear of failure and the pressures of being Simon Cowell's biggest hope

11 April 2012
The Weekender

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Leona Lewis won last year's X Factor then fell off the radar. She's finally finished her first CD, but has she left it too late to cash in? Or will she be Simon Cowell's greatest triumph of all?

About 20 people are gathered in a spacious studio in Burbank, California to watch the small, shy figure as she stands in front of the camera.

Leona Lewis, clad in a £100,000 figure-hugging Dolce & Gabbana frock, is miming the words to her new single, writhing about the floor and being doused in cold water, despite the onset of flu.

She is filming her first ever "proper" video for her new single, Bleeding Love, and although a novice at such things, everyone is in agreement: she looks a complete natural.

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'I'm never going to be loud and extravagant, I can't fake who I am'

Leona, in her typically unassuming way, isn't so sure.

"It was really good fun," she says, her spoken voice surprisingly girly when compared with the womanly sound emerging from the speakers, "but having so many people there, and realising they're all there to make my video, is very daunting."

"Daunting" is a word that frequently peppers Leona's conversation, as do the words, "I have to keep pinching myself", and, "I don't want to waste this opportunity" - phrases she offers up with almost mantra-like regularity.

But the girl who so emphatically won The X Factor last year is "not taking anything for granted" (another choice phrase).

"I just look at everything that has gone on before, all the difficulties and upsets, as part of the journey," she says.

"At times, the last year has been pretty overwhelming."

When Leona won The X Factor, she was the embodiment of a million girls' daydreams.

A working-class girl from London's Islington, with a normal family, a steady boyfriend and a job as a receptionist, the only thing that set her apart was that extraordinary singing voice.

Every week we watched as the shy young girl openly battled loneliness and homesickness while stuck away in the house that the show's contestants shared, to astound judges and viewers with her assured performances.

She blossomed before everyone's eyes, transforming every week from a pretty 21-year-old into a stunning diva, eventually beating the more assured 18-year-old Ray Quinn in the final that was watched by almost 13 million viewers.

The surprise wasn't that she'd won, but rather where she'd been hiding all this time. For if The X Factor could unearth someone with Leona's talent, how many other similarly gifted youngsters were just waiting to be plucked from obscurity?

As it turned out, Leona's story wasn't quite the rags-to-riches one the show liked to portray.

Instead of simply being 'discovered', Leona had spent most of her childhood in stage schools prepping herself for stardom. The X Factor - and this in itself is no mean achievement - was simply recognising the talent that was there.

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Leona : Simon Cowell's biggest hope?

Simon Cowell, The X Factor creator and a man not traditionally known for sentimental outbursts, declared that she had made his "dreams come true".

Clive Davis, the American record producer who discovered Whitney Houston, teamed up with Cowell to sign her up for a £5 million, five-album record deal, and even those not particularly enamoured with the reality TV show method of churning out winners, who promptly return to the obscurity from whence they came, couldn't argue with the fact that, in Leona, the show had discovered a girl who could actually sing.

Her voice has constantly been likened to those of her idols - Mariah Carey, Celine Dion and Houston herself - and Cowell declared Leona "one of the best singers we've had in this country for 20 years".

But while Leona's life has undoubtedly changed in the past ten months, little news has emerged of her musical progress.

Her album failed to materialise and the swell of pro-Leona headlines started to ebb, with claims that the record's delayed release meant that Leona had already missed her shot at success by not cashing in on the blanket of publicity that awaits the debut album release of every X Factor winner.

Rumours of recurring health problems abounded (even during the recording of the show, Leona was beset with tonsilitis), but now her debut album is completed, and the fact that it was nine months in the making perhaps tells its own story.

Certainly no one could accuse Cowell of not being canny, and having long spoken of his desire to launch Leona globally - an honour not bestowed on the previous British winners Steve Brookstein and Shayne Ward - both he and Leona insist that the drawn-out albummaking process was necessary in order to get it just right.

It has, though, been a nerve-tingling wait, as Leona herself concedes.

"I knew everyone was saying, 'Where's Leona gone? She's just another reality TV show singer who's disappeared', and it was worrying that some people were writing me off already.

"But it was necessary to take that time to make the album because we all wanted to get it right. I've always wanted to be a singer and now that I've been given this opportunity, I want longevity in this industry. Taking time over the album was fundamental to my development as an artist."

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Leona with Simon Cowell on The X Factor

That she can talk now with such confidence is a sign of how far Leona has already come.

The X Factor judge Louis Walsh memorably dismissed her on the show with a cutting, "She hasn't got a great personality. She's very shy and normal", and although she's not about to be photographed exiting her car sans knickers like some other pop stars one could mention, that's hardly a bad thing.

Her blend of self-effacement and quiet determination is disarming in itself.

She is still thoughtful enough to send thank-you notes to all the stylists and make-up artists who worked with her on a recent shoot, and when she has to initially cancel our interview due to the worsening of her flu, she is more than apologetic.

"I'm not a loud, extravagant person; I'm never going to be that and, to be honest, I don't want to be like that. I don't show off or boast, and it's pointless to think I'm going to be any different.

"I think Louis said what he said to cause a pantomime," she says, "but I can't fake who I am.

"I have all these amazing people around who want to support me, and sometimes I feel I should act more confidently. But everyone around me says not to change anything, and Simon has always told me to be myself."

Cowell's involvement in Leona's career has probably far surpassed his involvement in the careers of any other winner, and little time or expense has been spared in preparing her for global domination. Leona has already visited Cowell in his LA mansion.

"It was like a James Bond house," she says.

"We went up the drive and there was his Lamborghini - or some car that was very low to the ground - and his house was all glass. It was amazing. His mum and Terri [Seymour, Cowell's girlfriend] were there and I went over to listen to some songs. He's been very, very involved in the album.

"Obviously, he's so busy going between London and LA that I generally talk to him on the phone, but we usually agree on the songs. He always gives me feedback on what he likes and tells me to follow my instincts. We always had a really good relationship."

Leona's album is entitled Spirit - a word that, she says, has several connotations for her.

"It encapsulates so many different things.

"It reminds me of my time on The X Factor when I had to keep my spirits up; it represents strength and hope and something new, and also it represents my cousin and my nan, who both passed away. My cousin, Billie, died shortly before the show, and my nan not long after it, and so the album is in memory of them.

"On the show I sang Over The Rainbow, which was the song I sang at Billie's funeral. She was only 14 when she died of leukaemia, and even though we all mourned her death, I have such a lot of wonderful memories of her because she was always a happy person.

"Throughout the show my dad's mum (Laurette, who died at the age of 78) was in hospital. I was allowed to see Nan every week, and she said to me, "Keep your spirits up". She gave me such an energy boost and was a really funny lady who was a positive, godly person.

"Whenever I went to see her, she'd always say to the other patients, in her Guyanese accent, 'That's my granddaughter'.

"She and my granddad came to England when they were young, and they had 12 kids, so they struggled. But for all their struggles, they had happy lives.'

Leona remains close to her father, Joe, a youth offenders' officer, and mother, Marie, a social worker. Despite the £5 million recording contract, she has eschewed a move to LA, choosing to remain in Hackney, where she lives with her boyfriend, childhood sweetheart Lou Al-Chamaa, in a rented two-bedroom flat.

"It's close to my parents, which is nice because I asked Dad to get a spider out of the house the other day," she laughs.

"He said, 'You really have to grow up and do it yourself', but he still came round and did it. I'm not planning on moving to LA, and I wouldn't consider it unless it was for a particular reason. I do love it there, though - who would say no to all that sun? - but first I want to buy a house for my parents."

Extravagant purchases have been minimal, though she has, she admits, bought a car.

"My first! But it's a Mini and I still borrow my mum's car in any case."

And although she loved the designer clothes on the video shoot, "I don't wear those kind of clothes walking down the street".

When we meet, in the bar at Claridge's in London (teetotal Leona has a hot chocolate), she is sensibly attired in jacket, jeans and Ugg boots, hair scraped off her face, which is devoid of make-up.

As divas-in-the-making go, she is judiciously down-to-earth.

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Losing finalist Ray Quinn congratulates Leona on her win

So far she is enjoying the flattering aspects of her success, such as the recognition and the autograph-signing, and is mercifully still in the giddy early stages of fame, but that doesn't mean she hasn't tasted some of the more sour aspects.

Only recently, singer Jamelia apparently launched an attack on Leona, declaring her "a poor man's Mariah Carey" (Jamelia has since denied making such comments), and although Leona admits that, "it's never nice to hear something bad said about yourself," she adds, "I don't really read the tabloids and you never know if what's being printed is true or not. I've been so busy that I haven't really had time to notice things like that."

Leona has also been the subject of a kiss-and-tell interview when a former boyfriend, Chris Medoua, described his romps with the then 16-year-old Leona.

"That did hurt," she says now, "because it was untrue.

"They said I was 16 at the time, but I was only 14 and they had to make me older so they could make out that we had done more things than we had.

"But I was only a baby. Nothing happened. He was my boyfriend for a month and all we did was maybe kiss, but we definitely didn't sleep together.

"I was so upset when I saw the article," she says, "I cried. I'm very sensitive and I'm quite a soft person, and I cry a lot when things upset me.

"My family kept saying, 'I can't believe he's done that', but he obviously did it for the money.

"I didn't call him to ask him what he was playing at because it was eight years ago and I don't even have his number now. But I've been with the same guy for five years - he's been my only real boyfriend."

Leona has known her electrician boyfriend, Lou, since she was 11, and they have been dating since she was 17. She credits him with being one of her biggest supporters, and indeed it was Lou who went along with Leona to the X Factor auditions.

Even here, there have been the tabloid rumours that the couple's relationship has either been buckling under the pressure of Leona's win, or that they are engaged, neither of which, says Leona, are true.

"I really don't know where these stories come from," she says, "but the stuff about us splitting up was completely fabricated. I have spent some time away, recording the album, but when I come home we do home things and sometimes Lou will come out with me to LA.

"We've been friends for ages and he makes me laugh so much, but some things you have to keep private and we want to keep our relationship between ourselves. But we're definitely not engaged. I wear this ring on my left hand," she says, displaying a small, silver ring on her ring finger, "but I've worn it forever.

"I'm only 22 - I'm too young to talk about marriage and kids just yet."

Born in Stoke Newington, the middle of three children (brother Bradley, 26, is an editor with Time Warner, and Kyle, 21, a mechanic), Leona says that she was, "singing before I could talk. Dad was a part-time DJ, and there was always music in the house. From an early age, I was always jumping on the coffee table, singing along to Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston".

Her parents worked hard to encourage Leona's dreams of becoming an entertainer, saving enough money to send her to the £2,500-a-term Sylvia Young Theatre School in London as a full-time pupil when she was five, before she moved to the Italia Conti school at the age of nine.

"I always saw my parents working hard," says Leona, "and it made me learn that if you work hard, the rewards follow. I was always grateful to my parents for what they did.

"We had a normal, working-class upbringing, and I only realised how some other people lived when I went round to a friend's house and couldn't believe the size of the kitchen, it was as big as our entire flat. We then got driven to the cinema in a limousine. But when you're a kid, that stuff doesn't bother you, and you're just friends because you want to be."

Leona's striking mixed-race looks also elicited taunts from some of her classmates.

"I was the only one at stage school who wasn't white.

"Some kids would come up to me and say, 'Oh, you're mixed-race', making it a big deal when it wasn't.

"I later went to a school where the majority of the kids were black and, because I used to wear my hair out, I'd get teased for not wearing it in braids and for being different there, too.

"I did sometimes feel like an outsider, and it definitely upset me at the time. I'd go crying home to Mum - I told you I cry a lot! - and she would say to me, 'You're a beautiful girl and you're a part of me and a part of your dad. You don't have to do anything but carry yourself with pride'."

At 14, Leona secured a place at the BRIT School in Croydon, where a regular curriculum is taught alongside the stage school lessons and which spawned Katie Melua and Amy Winehouse.

Melua was a friend of Leona's at the time; they used to hang out at school, but they haven't spoken to each other since her X Factor win because she has been so busy.

"I was very happy when I was there," she says.

"I loved the singing, drama lessons and the dancing, and it was the first time I felt really at home.

"It took an hour and a half to travel there, and if I can do anything in the future it would be to help start up more state-funded schools like that because we really need them. I started to open up then and loved singing, because it was a complete release.

"I'd always been quite quiet growing up, and singing was a way of having a voice."

Leona left school at 17 and took on various jobs as a receptionist, sales assistant and Pizza Hut waitress, but used her earnings to pay for studio time in an effort to break into the music industry.

"I'd always tell people I wanted to sing and they'd say, 'Yes, but what do you want to do when you're older?', as though it was an unrealistic ambition. I auditioned for plays and shows, and had a lot of setbacks when I didn't get parts.

"When I did get a part in The Lion King at Disneyland Paris at 18, I turned it down because I didn't want to move so far away from home.

"I was working as a receptionist when I auditioned for The X Factor and I was at a really low point, thinking of going to university and doing a course because the music thing just wasn't happening for me. But I went on the show and..." Leona shrugs. She doesn't really need to finish the sentence.

It must be, to use Leona's word, pretty daunting to be compared to the likes of Mariah, Whitney and Celine.

"To be compared to them just one per cent would be amazing to me.

"I am nervous, but there's no way I'm going to let this opportunity slide. Whatever happens to me from now on, I can't ever imagine wanting to distance myself from The X Factor, or having a bad word to say about it, because the show opened doors for me that had never opened before.

"I can't let myself or my family down; I just want to be the best I possibly can."

Her most nerve-wracking moment, she says, was when record producer Clive Davis hosted a showcase for her at his LA home last year - the first showcase he had hosted since discovering Whitney all those years ago.

A prodigious talent, Whitney's slide into alleged drug abuse has been well-documented, so does Leona ever worry that she too will succumb to the seedier aspects of fame. 'No,' she says firmly.

"I don't drink alcohol, I've never done drugs and I'm not the type of person to come stumbling out of nightclubs.

"You never know what's true about celebrities, but I do know I'll be in trouble with my dad if I get up to anything like that. And I won't even do naked, half-naked or underwear shoots. All I want to do is my music, and just hearing my single on the radio the other day brought a tear to my eye; I was so happy."

It'll certainly be interesting to see how fame and a concerted bid to launch Leona worldwide will change her, but for now, she is certainly as sweet and as likeable as she was at the beginning of her X Factor campaign.

"I feel, and I hope, I'm the same girl I've always been and that my situation has changed, but I haven't."

She's a nice, down-to-earth girl is Leona. One sincerely hopes she stays that way.

Leona's single, Bleeding Love, is out on Monday and her album, Spirit, on 12 November.

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