Pink rocker a role model
Leave a commentNovember 30, 2002 by Jessica Cardoso
SHE has a dog with a rude name that sounds like Mucker, she is covered in tattoos and she is America’s biggest-selling female star this year.
In pop terms she’s no Britney — but teachers and parents are deciding wild child Pink is a great role model for their kids.
A rebel with a cause, her frequent brushes with the law helped the singer quickly become an inspiration to millions of disaffected teenagers around the world.
But amazingly it is the people she rebels against who are now giving her the most praise.
On the back of her multi-million album sales she has become the acceptable face of tearaway youth.
As I catch up with self-proclaimed shock-popper Pink in Barcelona, she says: “I’m a real tomboy and I hate authority. I’m against it and that was difficult being a child.
“I got kicked out of everything for having a bad attitude. Now it inspires people.
“I was expelled from school a couple of times. Teachers didn’t like me — but they do now, they love me.
“They kicked me out but now they want me back to give talks to kids. I love it and I kindly remind them, ‘Weren’t you the one who said I was most likely to be behind bars in ten years?’”
And it’s not just the figures of authority who are sitting up to take note — kids across the planet see her as a huge inspiration.
She says: “I think I’ve helped a lot of girls let go of the need to dress in a … well I don’t want to say slutty way, but I reckon you can be comfortable and still be sexy. You can be whatever you want to be.
“I don’t know what the hell I’ve done, I just wrote songs but that seems to have had an effect.
“I know my music affects them because that’s what they write in letters, that’s awesome. I’m filling a gap for all the social workers out there who suck and don’t do their job, like the ones I had. I’m making every guidance counsellor’s job a lot easier.
“Nobody could tell me anything when I was younger, I wasn’t hearing anything. If some older girl came up to me and told me, ‘This is what you should do’, I would have told her to kiss my ***
“My advice now is to take three deep breaths, do what the hell you want and try to make it to 21. Then you can decide what you want to do with the rest of your life.
“I’m proof that things absolutely can happen. Nobody thought that I would get to here but I was very determined to get the hell out, that was what drove me.
“I wanted to get out of my town, I wanted to get out of my life. I was determined to make it, to do something with my life. That was from the age of like seven or eight, I just wanted out.”
Her life is littered with broken relationships, including her parents’ divorce, and general anger and unhappiness.
That’s why I thought she’d be difficult and obstructive but she is fun and full of life — dare I say Pinky is Perky.
She is also a welcome antidote to the plague of faceless conveyor belt stars who have nothing interesting to say.
Not a single question is dodged as she explains the tough upbringing in Philadelphia which inspired her collection of dark and moody pop anthems on the album Missundaztood, which has clocked up SEVEN MILLION sales.
An unlikely pop star, Alicia Moore is her real name. She is the 23-year-old daughter of a Vietnam veteran and a nurse.
Her new single, Family Portrait, reflects on her troubled upbringing. She says: “There’s a lot of anger in my songs. Everything inspires my anger, there’s a lot of reasons why I’m angry. I’m sure my childhood was part of it. That’s when I went downhill.
“I was the perfect kid, I had fun when I was little, I climbed trees, total tomboy. But when I hit the double digits it turned, I just went crazy.
“When I was a juvenile I was behind bars a couple of times but since I turned adult I’ve never been convicted of anything.
“It was for all kinds of stuff, just juvenile crap like shoplifting. I used to run away when my mum would go out of town. But she’d call the cops then leave. They would catch me and keep me until she got back.”
But Pink stresses that her fanbase isn’t just made up of angry teenage girls.
She says: “There was this 65-year-old guy with white hair in the front row the other day going, ‘Yeah!’, with his arm up the whole time.
“That was a trip. It takes all different people.
“I think there weren’t a lot of people out there writing morbid songs. So I filled the morbid gap.”
I tell Pink that I believe her success has inspired “rivals” Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera to change their image.
Since Pink burst on to the scene with tracks that include Just Like A Pill and Let’s Get The Party Started, they have certainly grunged up their looks.
She agrees, saying: “I like pop music — I once went to a New Kids On The Block concert.
“I think Britney in particular is a hard-working lady, honestly.
“I don’t listen to her kind of music, it’s not my thing, but I would never disrespect her because she works damn freaking hard and she’s young and I’m sure she’s stressed.
“Her image, and Christina Aguilera’s, have changed so much over the last few years. I think they are copying me. Whatever works you just follow it, I guess. Some people have their own identity and others don’t.”
Pink lives alone in Los Angeles with her rudely named dog.
But she has met a man she thinks could be Mr Right.
Motorbiker Carey Hart, 26, chatted her up in Las Vegas (brave man) last December and they have been together ever since.
She tells me: “It will be a year in four days — not that I’m counting.
“We see a lot of each other. We make it happen, I make him fly out to me, meet me in weird places like Tokyo.
“He’s a moto-cross rider and he crashed and broke 14 bones five minutes after I met him. Next time I saw him he was just out of hospital.”
I ask her if she always has that effect on men and she giggles. “And then I met him two months later and I was like, ‘Hey you’re that cute boy I met who was on crutches’.
“I asked, ‘Are you riding today?’ He said, ‘No, I’m still hurting’. I replied, ‘Oh yeah, sorry’.
He’s the one right now. This is the longest normal relationship I’ve ever had. The others have been s***.
“I’ve had man trouble but I don’t hate men. My Dad’s my favourite person, he’s a real man.
“He had a heart attack a couple of weeks ago and I just had to cancel everything and go home — it was too much. He’s OK, he had no permanent damage and even drove himself to the hospital.
“As he was having his heart attack, he drives himself to the hospital, that’s that tough airforce spirit. That’s that dumb, stubborn-*** dad I have. He was in the airforce in Vietnam. He told me he was once in a tent and he woke up and there was a guy at his feet with a machete.
“If he hadn’t been a light sleeper his whole camp would have been killed. But he shot the guy and saved everybody.
“My Mum and Dad split up when I was eight or nine.”
With all those millions of albums shifted the money must have started to roll in.
I ask Pink whether she is now a multi-millionaire and she laughs: “F*** no. Excuse me. No, I got jacked by some people on my way to the top and now I’m not even at the top. I’m in the middle, so when I get to the top I’m sure I’ll be a multi-millionaire but that’s not what I really care about.
“I’m not really materialistic — as long as I can pay my way, buy Perrier instead of Evian, I’m cool.
“I’ve got one car — a Cadillac truck — and a scooter and a dirt bike but I spend most of my money on my family. I love to give them things.
“I get them all kinds of stuff except houses. I gotta get myself a proper house first. I gave my brother a motorcycle and my Dad, I gave him a Rolex.
“He’s so happy because his whole life he wanted a Rolex and he had to give his up for child support so I kind of gave it back to him.
“But I work hard — for five or six days I’ve been up until 9o’clock in the morning and I have to get up again at 11.30.
“I’m an insomniac anyway so I’m used to it but I’ve never been this busy. Sometimes I don’t sleep, I just pace up and down and write.
“I went to bed last night though. I was just so tired I fell asleep. I’m OK now.”
Home is shared with the aformentioned dog. So what’s the story behind the name?
She explains: “I like being at home with my dog. He’s so cute, he’s perfect. I took him home and I was like, ‘What’s your name?’
“He just looked up at me and started biting at my face and I just said, ‘F***er!’”
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Source: TheSun.
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