Lips Unsealed

by Belinda Carlisle

  And that was the thing. I wasn’t able to retreat to a golden castle and do nothing for the rest of my life. I had less than $20,000 to my name when I moved in with Morgan slightly less than six months earlier. I had blown God only knew how much money on drugs, travel, clothes, and even a racehorse I purchased on a whim for some ghastly sum. I needed to work.

  I finally met secretly with Charlotte, who agreed with me that after two months of work the only decent, Go-Go’s-sounding song we had was “Mad About You,” which Paula had brought in. Otherwise the band wasn’t working anymore. It was early May 1985. We had an album to record and a tour to set up. But both struck us as unlikely. The lack of material aside, the dynamics were way off and no one was getting along. Charlotte and I decided it was time to call it a day.

  We talked it through until we assured ourselves that the band had stopped moving forward artistically and that we as individuals were stifled. We could do other things. I had already been approached about doing a solo album. Though that hadn’t been an option when the band was my top and only priority, it sounded viable now, and Charlotte was amenable to working with me.

  The two of us called a meeting with the other girls on the second Friday of the month and broke the news that we wanted to end the band. Kathy and Gina were not just shocked, they were blindsided and fought back with anger and bitterness at the way we handled the situation. Kathy insisted we were overreacting and had overcome worse, but I kept to the basic premise: the band wasn’t working, the songs were terrible, and the chemistry wasn’t there.

  They also blamed the breakup on Morgan, as if he was the Yoko Ono of the band, maintaining I had changed since meeting him. I had changed, but only because I wasn’t off my trolley on coke anymore and began to have some opinions. But they were mine, not Morgan’s. It wasn’t fair to blame him—or true.

  For the next eight months, I worked on Belinda, my first solo album. I dove in without thinking about any of the pressure-packed issues I would face later on when I actually stepped out publicly and faced critics, Go-Go’s fans, and the new reality that I was on my own. I moved quickly, sticking to the relatively safe and familiar pop territory for which I was known. Should I have tried to develop an edgier sound or gone back to my punk roots? In retrospect, I wish I had pushed it to a harder place. But I wasn’t in that headspace. Nor did I have that kind of creative freedom as a new artist.

  I was working with veteran producer Michael Lloyd, and we chose Paula’s infectious pop song “Mad About You” as a starting point. I loved the song, as did Miles and the rest of his IRS team. I also relied heavily on Charlotte, who had five songwriting credits on the album. Plus Michael and I chose songs from such proven hitmakers as Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham, Split Enz’s Tim Finn, Tom Kelly, Billy Steinberg, and the Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs.

  The album was rounded out by musical contributions from Duran Duran’s Andy Taylor and session legends David Lindley and Nicky Hopkins, among others. The danger of employing so many disparate talents, of course, was ending up with an album that didn’t have a personality of its own. But after hearing an early compilation, I thought the album was good. I was proud of it.

  Critics would say it wasn’t much of a step forward (it’s “the antithesis of the Go-Go’s intelligent girl-group gestalt,” said Rolling Stone), but it began a transformation for me whether it was evident or not. When it was time to take pictures for the album’s cover, I realized that I photographed well and was considered pretty even though I didn’t feel that way about myself.

  No, when I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw me at ten years old, wearing the polka-dot dress my mom had gotten on special at Sears, the one the kids at school knew was my only outfit. Or I saw myself a year or two later in a sleeveless hand-me-down that was lime green with flowers and let me believe when I put it on and did my hair in pigtails that I was pretty like Marcia Brady. Yet then I ran outside just as a car carrying some kids from school drove past and one of them yelled, “Hey, fatso!”

  Despite being almost twenty-eight years old, inside my head I was still that girl, scared, awkward, and full of shame and insecurity. I definitely didn’t see the beauty other people kept saying I had turned into.

  On the other hand, after cleaning up my act, I saw a profound physical change. I lost the bloat I had from doing coke and drinking every night, especially from my face. I also lived a healthier lifestyle, eating better and working out. I started my day in the morning, a positive change in itself, as opposed to ending my day at that time, and I hit the gym with a trainer, lifting weights and running. All in all, I shed about twenty pounds and received lots of compliments about the way I looked.

  There was nothing like being in a boutique and hearing women whisper, “Isn’t that Belinda Carlisle? I didn’t know she was so pretty.” (Hey, I didn’t know it either.) I also heard people say I looked like a young Ann-Margret, whose starring roles in Viva Las Vegas and Bye Bye Birdie had made her one of my favorite actresses.

  But I had mixed feelings about such compliments. All through the Go-Go’s I never lacked for boyfriends, but the press constantly referred to me as pretty and plump or cute and chubby, which bugged me. Then, as I started to do some early interviews before my album was close to being released, I began to hear the flipside, that I was slim, svelte, and sexy, like a new, hot Belinda Carlisle.

  I knew it was all well intentioned. But why did my size even have to be an issue? I was confused enough. Couldn’t I just be liked for being myself?

  Good question.

  No easy answers.

  When it came time to shoot the album cover, I knew I had the opportunity to do something special. I let the music inspire the image. I came up with the idea of modeling it after Ann-Margret’s great look from Viva Las Vegas, in black tights and a sweater. Since people were making that comparison, why not? Matthew Ralston, the photographer, liked the idea, and so we went with it.

  The resulting photo was stark and classy yet still pop. It sure didn’t look like old pictures of me in which I always seemed as if I had just hit the deli tray, that’s for sure. I thought it conveyed a slightly more grown-up vibe. I liked it.

  The “Mad About You” video, directed by Leslie Lieberman, was a fun, romantic postcard that fit with the song. We shot it in Santa Monica’s Ocean Park, overlooking the beach and on the sand itself. I wore a black cocktail dress, swept my hair back, and put on a pair of sunglasses. It was simple and classy and felt to me like it fit the song.

  My favorite part was that Morgan played my dreamy love interest. He didn’t want me kissing anybody else.

  Fine with me. I didn’t want to kiss anybody else.

  I was in a good place, the best in years. I was most accurately described by my new catchphrase: 100 percent. I used it all the time. I was giving my career 100 percent. My attitude was 100 percent positive. I couldn’t say I was 100 percent sober, since I allowed myself an occasional glass of wine. But I was 100 percent in love.

  Morgan was, too. One night, as we ate dinner, he said we should get married. Both of us had always felt like we got engaged the first night we had dinner together. We never doubted we were going to get married; it was merely a question of when. As Morgan pointed out, with my album set for release at the start of summer, and a tour, our lives were going to get very busy. He thought we should make our relationship legal before we were swept up in events we couldn’t control. I agreed.

  After dinner, we got out the calendar and set a date. The rest was easy. I had always known that I didn’t want to walk down the aisle in a white dress in front of tons of people. I knew better than to fantasize about a family get-together. Morgan, who’d grown up with parties every night, didn’t want a big, fancy wedding either.

  We set a date and without telling anyone, I went out the next week and bought a white suit and a pair of Prada pumps. (Back then I had to ask, “What’s Prada?” Now I know.) We picked Lake Tahoe as a fun place to elope. The day before we left, Morgan broke the n
ews to his mother and I filled my parents in on the plan. If any of them were disappointed we weren’t going to have a large wedding, they didn’t tell us. We heard only encouragement and congratulations.

  For all of Morgan’s planning, though, I forgot my makeup and had to wear cover stick on my face and blue eyeliner instead of mascara. Even though I looked like a Kabuki dancer in our wedding photos, he still held my hand, as I did his, when, on the evening of April 12, 1986, the minister from the local Elvis Wedding Chapel joined us in our hotel suite and pronounced us husband and wife.

  We exchanged simple gold bands and a long, romantic kiss. Then we changed into our sweats and went down to the casino. I won $4,000 playing baccarat.

  I had never considered myself unlucky. But now that I was married to this most wonderful man, I felt even luckier.

  sixteen

  I FEEL THE MAGIC

  THREE AND a half weeks later, I was onstage in a small San Diego club, and I wouldn’t have blamed anyone watching my performance if they closed their eyes for a moment and thought they had stumbled into a surprise Go-Go’s show. It happened to me. After all, my voice still had the trademark let’s-get-this-party-going timber of the group’s three previous gold albums, and as I pranced around barefoot in a simple print dress, I radiated the same sun-kissed, surfer-girl looks under the spotlight. But some key elements were different or missing, starting with three out of the other four Go-Go’s.

  When I looked to my right, I still saw Charlotte on guitar and keyboards. Otherwise I was out there by myself. I was also singing brand-new material from my eponymous album, Belinda. I didn’t have any proven hits to fall back on and get the crowd going. The only song people might have heard before was the first single, “Mad About You,” which had been released days earlier.

  No wonder before the show I was a bundle of raw nerves, knowing that I could no longer divide the responsibility up four other ways. The whole thing was on my shoulders. Once that spotlight hit me, there was no denying this next phase of my career. I was starting over.

  Morgan supplied the confidence I lacked. He sent roses to that warm-up gig and channeled positive energy to me a few nights later when I headlined three sold-out dates at the Roxy. I had played there with the Go-Go’s. It represented a lot of good times. But seeing my name centered by itself on the marquee felt more frightening. It was one thing to affect a different image in a photo session and quite another to step out onstage and embody it.

  I was also open about the challenges I faced offstage. I told Los Angeles Times critic Robert Hilburn, as well as other reporters, that I had been on the road to physical ruin and needed serious help getting my act together. Though I stopped short of admitting my cocaine addiction, I did say that I attended twelve-step meetings. It was a good story, and I wasn’t lying when I said that I probably would have been “broke, alone and desperate” if I didn’t change my ways.

  However, deep down I knew that I wasn’t being entirely truthful with them or, more important, with myself. Prior to the Roxy shows, I had a glass of wine in my dressing room. What was one glass of wine? Most of the time I didn’t even finish a whole glass. I drank only enough to take the edge off the jitters I always had before going onstage.

  It was like there were two versions of me. There was the insecure Belinda who couldn’t believe people would pay money to see her. Then there was the Belinda who drank a glass of wine and turned into a singer. At that point, anything was possible. The Roxy’s audience was full of industry types and characters from the old scene, including Exene and some of her cohorts, who, I was told, came just to cackle. She was in the minority. The hometown crowd roared their approval.

  I hung on Morgan afterward, grateful he was there and more grateful that he had stuck with me through some very tough times. I almost believed him when he said that I had given a performance that surpassed everyone’s expectations but his. More than twenty years later, as I was redoing my website, I came across a video on YouTube of me from one of those shows, singing “Since You’ve Gone,” a great song that featured Charlotte playing keyboards. Unsure if I wanted to watch it, I took a deep breath and clicked Play. I was surprised. I thought it was really good.

  In June, I went on tour with Robert Palmer, who was having monster success with the chart-topping single “Addicted to Love.” I was his opening act, and he was not very nice to me. He was aloof, condescending, and dismissive. He spoke to me only once during the entire month we traveled together and that was to ask if I had any drugs. I didn’t. It was the first time I could ever say no. He shrugged, walked away, and never had anything to do with me again.

  I struggled with jealousy when Madonna released her great song “Papa Don’t Preach.” From her True Blue album, it was an instant hit that took radio by storm and soared to number one. But my problem was with Madonna herself, not the music. I looked at her body and thought, Oh my God, she looks phenomenal and it’s because she’s skinnier than me. I have to get that skinny.

  Poor Morgan. When we talked on the phone at night, he would ask me about the show and then have to listen to me go on about the food I ate that day, how much I weighed, and whether I thought I looked fat. Despite Morgan’s reassurances, I never felt thin enough, pretty enough, or good enough.

  My fans disagreed, too, but there was one admirer whom I could have done without. A few dates into the tour, my birth father contacted me again. It was the first time since I had seen him two years earlier. Going through my management company, he congratulated me on the new album and asked if he and his family could come to the show when we stopped in New Orleans. I put them on the list, but as the date drew near I complained to Charlotte that I didn’t feel good about seeing him.

  “What don’t you feel good about?” she asked.

  “Everything,” I said. “It’s a feeling I have.”

  “Why?” she asked, pressing me.

  “I just don’t want to see him,” I said.

  That was exactly it. I didn’t want to deal with the emotions that would surface when I let him back into my life. I was much happier when I avoided him and other unpleasant realities in my life. As I knew, my father was one chapter. I had been telling journalists that I was helped by Alcoholics Anonymous, implying I was sober, when I knew the real story was different. Instead of confronting the truth, as well as why I still drank, I ran from it. Deep down I knew it, too. But … well, there was always a but.

  Before the New Orleans show, I was tense and upset and not anything like myself on the previous dates. I thought about him throughout my performance and couldn’t wait to get off the stage. But then that only hurried and exacerbated the confrontation that I wanted to avoid.

  Large trailers served as dressing rooms, and I was peeking out the window of mine as he came backstage. He and his daughters got as far as the wooden barricade that had been set up to keep people from entering the artists’ area unless their names were on the list. I watched as a large security guard stopped them and checked my father’s name against the names attached to his clipboard. I took a deep breath; I knew what was going to happen. Indeed, a moment later, I saw the security guard shake his head and my dad turn around and walk away, dejected. His family followed.

  I had tears streaming down my face. I felt cruel and sad. But I couldn’t handle seeing him.

  I know everyone—record executives, critics, my former bandmates, fans, and myself—all wondered if I would be able to pull off a solo album and tour. Given where I had started from a year earlier, the odds were stacked against me. But my single “Mad About You” reached number three on the charts and the album itself sold more than five hundred thousand copies in the United States, making it gold. It surpassed everyone’s expectations, including my own.

  Success also made comparisons to the Go-Go’s, and resulting criticism, easier to take. I was happy with the album. It was like the romantic pop that I had listened to when I was growing up and lying in front of the stereo speakers. Like all my solo albums sinc
e, it reflected where I was at the time.

  My life felt inexplicably charmed. Morgan and I sold our respective condos—his was where we’d been living, and mine was left over from my Dodger days—and rented a cute house in Benedict Canyon. He went to work at the William Morris Agency, and I felt like I was getting to start my life over again. I couldn’t begin to explain the turnaround.

  Then it got even better. We had barely settled into our rental when my business manager informed me that I had some significant royalties coming in from Belinda and should think about investing in a house. I had never thought about spending such money, but I dutifully looked around without seeing anything I liked except for one weird house up the street. It was covered in vines and looked like an English cottage that had fallen into a bit of disrepair.

  I didn’t let the fact that it wasn’t for sale stop me from obsessing about it. I regularly stopped my car and stared at it. One day I left a note on the gate with my name and number, explaining to the owner that I loved the house and wondered if they might be interested in selling it.

  The owner, an entertainment attorney, got in touch with me and invited me to see the house. He wasn’t sure he wanted to sell it, but he was happy to show me around. The place was in terrible condition. He had let it get run-down. But I saw only magic. It had once belonged to Carole Lombard, who used it as a hideaway for her trysts with Clark Gable. The kitchen floor included a concrete square with her footprints and signature dated 1936. I wanted it more than ever, but as I left, the owner said he wasn’t interested in selling.

  However, a short time later, the house went on the market. It was more than I could possibly afford. Plus we had gone ahead and put a down payment on another house nearby. My heart sank. Then out of nowhere another chunk of money came in that allowed Morgan and me to afford our dream house. We lost the other down payment, but c’est la vie.