Lips Unsealed

by Belinda Carlisle

  There was one downside. Obviously I didn’t tell anyone about my eating issues, but I felt a clutch of anxiety when I read the reviews of our one-off and saw that all of them talked about my weight. The Los Angeles Times, while noting my “untouchable supermodel look,” said I had formerly been “the most roly-poly and tomboyish-looking member,” and the Orange County Register called me “the Oprah Winfrey of pop,” a reference to my up-and-down weight.

  If I wasn’t obsessing about my weight, others were.

  I should’ve known I was going to get in trouble. Shortly after the May kickoff of my world tour in the UK, I was in my hotel reading through the latest press clippings. I came across a recent review that described me as looking like a singing secretary onstage. He had taken exception to the Chanel-inspired suits I’d had custom-made for the tour. I took offense, but in retrospect he was right.

  I looked like shit. I was way too skinny, wore too much makeup, my bobbed hair was wrong, and the suits—well, they were a different issue. They reflected the trouble I’d had at the outset deciding on a look for the tour. If you have to think too much about those things, it’s a sign of confusion and uncertainty—and that was me.

  One thing I wasn’t confused about was my birth father. He had started writing me letters again before I left home and continued sending entreaties through my management after I started my tour. I had spoken to him a few times on the phone out of the guilt I still felt from having not seen him on my Heaven tour, but I had no intention of letting him back in my life at the level he wanted.

  I also found something slightly creepy about the way he professed such strong affection for me in his letters. How can you love someone you don’t know?

  Finally, I came straight out and told him that I didn’t want to have a relationship with him. Considering how much I had adored him as a little girl, I agonized about sending him that message. He responded by sending me letters saying that I was going to burn in hell unless I found forgiveness in my heart. I ignored him, hoping and praying he would go away—and he did for a while.

  Morgan was such a rock. So were my friends Jeannine and Jack and my makeup artist Pearlie Whirly, who kept me company on the tour. But I struggled to keep my emotions in check. Although still coke-free, I was drinking more. I also started keeping a secret stash of pills, including Valium, Halcion, and Rohypnol. I never thought I might be traveling back down the road to addiction. As long as I wasn’t doing coke, I thought I was fine, no big deal.

  And it wasn’t, I suppose, until I had to perform a promotional show on the same bill as Beach Boys’ genius Brian Wilson in Ibiza, an island off Spain. I had never been to this Mediterranean playground, but I knew of its reputation as a decadent, party-hearty getaway for the rich, something that was confirmed when I spotted director Roman Polanski with a pretty young girl at the baggage claim. I thought, Perfect, this is my kind of place.

  On the way to the hotel, I got my friends Jeannine and Pearlie to promise we were going to be healthy, jog and hike, lay out in the sun, eat right, and get plenty of sleep. By night, though, I was whooping it up at the giant nightclub Amnesia and enjoying my first time doing ecstasy. It seemed like everyone was on it.

  We hit all the big ecstasy clubs, including a party in the middle of nowhere—it seemed like a desert—where I watched columns of drag queens go-go dancing. It was a magnificent spectacle. I was both stunned and drawn straight into the unfolding circus. I had never experienced such a night. The whole place was like a Fellini movie. Suddenly, I was drinking tumblers of vodka, smoking cigarettes, dancing, not just listening to but absorbing the music, and having the time of my life. On E, I loved everyone I met.

  At one of the clubs, someone offered me a hit of coke. I did it without thinking; my response was automatic. Right after, though, I knew I shouldn’t have done it. I thought, Uh-oh.

  I hadn’t done coke in four years. But that one hit triggered a reaction straight out of the drug addict’s textbook. I went on a binge and came out of the last club in the morning. Awash in hot sunlight, I said to myself, “I’m a disaster. This is fucked.”

  I had yet to call home to check in with Morgan. I sat in the back of a cab and rehearsed what I was going to say to Morgan. Hi, honey, it’s me. How are you? I tried different inflections. I was panicked about how I was going to sound. At the hotel, I got out of the cab and walked straight into Brian Wilson and his twenty-four-hour therapist, Dr. Eugene Landy. I tried to act normal as I said hello, but I wasn’t fooling anyone. My hair was twisted and gross, my lipstick was blue, and I was covered in filth. Dr. Landy knew what was going on. He also knew Morgan, which made me fear he might call him. I was fucked.

  I went up to my room and paced back and forth with my cigarette, trying to come down from the coke and rehearsing what I was going to say. Finally, I called Morgan and said I had woken up early and was going to the beach for a jog. He believed me.

  On hanging up, though, I was hit with a one-two of shame and guilt for lying to him and for what I had done. Ibiza wasn’t good for me. The place was full of temptation. I wanted to get out of there. I performed that night and let some local friends take me out to a club. But this time I didn’t drink or do anything, including enjoy myself. In the morning, I caught the first available plane out of there.

  I felt like I would’ve died in Ibiza if I had stayed any longer. I didn’t want to do coke ever again.

  But soon it was like I had never stopped.

  eighteen

  EMOTIONAL HIGHWAY

  SINCE THE TALES of drug abuse and acrimony had already been told at least in part in the press, the Go-Go’s two-month reunion tour in November and December 1990 gave us a chance to focus on the thing that mattered most: the impressive collection of music we had put together before calling it quits six years earlier. With a new greatest-hits package that included a snappy remix of “Cool Jerk,” plus a video featuring the five of us looking like a million bucks, everyone agreed we could make a point about our contributions to the eighties. If we also made a profit, no one would complain.

  More important, having already come to terms on past disagreements, we felt like we could get along, and for the most part we did. We preceded a kickoff appearance on David Letterman’s late-night talk show with a heavy-duty shopping spree in New York City that reminded me of the fun we used to have together. Onstage, I had a blast singing the old songs and looking to either side and seeing Gina and Kathy in sync and watching Jane and Charlotte trade riffs.

  Occasionally the old jealousies reared their head. The girls didn’t like it when we pulled up to one venue and the marquee read “Belinda Carlisle and the Go-Go’s.” Several hotels also gave me a larger room than the others even after we made sure to tell them everyone in the band was equal. I even forced a couple of the girls to see my room before they checked into theirs so they knew I wasn’t creating the problem. After a few more times, though, I got fed up with the carping and complaining and had a Neely O’Hara–type moment when I snapped, “I can’t help it if I’m a bigger star than you!”

  Needless to say, my outburst didn’t go over well. But everyone had moments when they cracked, and we got over them.

  Barbs from the press directed at me were harder to ignore. I knew it was part of being the lead singer, that when you stand out front you put yourself in line for the most attention and criticism. But reviewers seemed to use me for target practice, like the Chicago Tribune’s guy, who worked up an excuse to call me the group’s only nonwriter and intimated that I had reunited with the band because my “hits finally dried up.” Never mind that he had his facts wrong. What was the point of being hurtful?

  Ironically, I kept myself on the road as much as possible. Without consciously realizing it, I was running from my life. In mid-December, though, the Go-Go’s tour ended and I returned home, which meant either facing hard truths about my behavior or lying to Morgan.

  I chose the latter. I didn’t want him to know that drugs had crept back into m
y life—a life where the stakes had risen and I had much to lose. Morgan and I had a beautiful home, a glamorous social life, and a genuine friendship. Morgan also wanted to start a family. He looked forward to being a father. But having helped raise my brothers and sisters, I didn’t share his enthusiasm about dealing with a baby. I’d been there and done that. I liked my freedom.

  Our talks on the subject resulted in an agreement that we wouldn’t purposely try to have a child but we wouldn’t try to prevent it from happening either. I was grateful to reach a compromise. The last thing I wanted was to confess the real reason I wasn’t as enthusiastic as Morgan about starting a family—that I was back on drugs. How could I take care of a baby when I wasn’t able to take care of myself?

  After New Year’s, I began working with Rick again on my fourth solo album, Live Your Life Be Free. Unlike with my earlier solo albums, I wasn’t able to focus. I was distracted by my secret coke binges.

  As hard as I tried to keep Morgan from finding out, he eventually caught on. He busted me a couple times. Not in the act, but I was high. Angry and upset, he pleaded with me to stop. He wanted to know why I was back on coke. With all I had going for me, why? I didn’t have an answer. Crying, I promised to stop. I swore “never again,” and I meant it from the bottom of my heart. But deep down I knew I couldn’t keep that promise. I wasn’t ready to admit I was an addict, but I knew I was powerless.

  After many tear-filled confrontations, I chose a different tack. I decided I wasn’t going to keep it a secret from him. The lies were tearing me apart, and I feared it was having the same effect on us. So I told Morgan almost everything. If I was at the studio all day or night, I adopted a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. But if we went out and I had the opportunity or inclination to buy, I would tell him that I was getting half a gram. Sometimes he objected. Other times he looked the other way. And still other times he couldn’t contain his disgust or fear.

  He was frightened that I was getting back into the habit again. But I insisted that I had things under control.

  “No, no, no,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  After the problems with Runaway Horses, I went into the making of Live Your Life Be Free feeling like it wouldn’t receive much support from the record company in the U.S. Rick was more optimistic. He was always more positive and forward-looking, a trait that infuses his songwriting. However, between changing times and tastes, the public’s fascination with newer artists, record company politics, and my own personal issues, I sensed that my career was on the downslide.

  Good songs failed to excite me. I felt like the songs “Live Your Life Be Free” and “Half the World” were as good as any I had put on a solo album, but I didn’t think they would be enough this time around. It brought up my fears of being an imposter and undeserving of my life. I was terrified the clock would strike midnight, my designer clothes would turn into rags, and I’d end up a bag lady on the streets.

  Morgan’s reassurances helped. But periodically I found myself thinking about other career moves or saying to myself, “You can always go back to hairdressing or stenography.”

  The one option that didn’t cross my mind was motherhood. I should have thought harder. In early September, while in London at a photo session for the Daily Mail, I found out that I was pregnant. Thinking there might be a reason I was waking up nauseous, I bought a home pregnancy test the night before the shoot and took the test in my hotel room. It came back positive. What was a joyous occasion for most women, learning they had a new life growing inside them, caused my world to come crashing down.

  I had known for a while there was a possibility I could get pregnant. But the reality was different. Part of me was excited for what it would mean to Morgan, and part of me was horrified. I had a lot of mother issues that needed to be addressed. I feared that my life as I knew it, at almost thirty-three years old, was about to end. I also had a terrible concern, one that I knew I eventually had to tell my doctor.

  After a long cry, I pulled myself together and called Morgan at home with the good news. He was ecstatic. I sounded like everything was wonderful, too. It was easy for me to put on a smiley face. I was genuinely happy for Morgan and thought I would grow to feel the same way. At the moment, though, all I felt was nauseous. I had a rough bout of morning sickness—which went on through my promotional tour of Europe and Scandinavia, as well as the next four months. I vomited every morning. I was either sick or hungry all day long. There were no in-betweens.

  As soon as I got back home, I went to the doctor to address another, deeper concern. Prior to learning I was pregnant, I had binged on coke and done ecstasy. Unable to hold back the tears, I confessed everything to the doctor, explaining that I had drank and done drugs during the earliest weeks of my pregnancy and I was terribly frightened about possible damage I might have inflicted on the baby.

  He told me not to worry because the placenta wasn’t developed yet and the baby would be fine if I quit immediately. I told him that I already had. He gave me a stern, sober look.

  “Tell me the truth. You aren’t still using cocaine or other drugs, are you?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “When did you stop?”

  “I haven’t done anything since right before I took the pregnancy test,” I said.

  As he got my file off the counter, he saw a pack of cigarettes in my purse.

  “You’re smoking cigarettes?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Stop.”

  I nodded. “I will.”

  And I did.

  At the end of September, MCA released “Live Your Life Be Free” as the first single off my fourth album of the same title, which came out a month later. Both stiffed in the U.S., as I had anticipated. I blamed a lack of support from my record company, conveniently ignoring my own contributions. Yet others noticed. The Boston Globe called the album “emotionally vapid” and said that I merely “went through the motions,” and a January 1992 Rolling Stone review said my “biggest shortcoming” was “my failure to impart any real feeling to the words” I sang.

  Such criticism pissed me off, but deep down I knew they had a point, and in fact, years later, when I was able to take an honest and uncompromising look back at my efforts, I not only agreed but understood why. I had numbed myself with drugs until I found out I was pregnant. But even then, I found ways to stay disconnected. It took me sixteen years to admit this, but I had a glass of wine every day throughout my pregnancy. I knew it was unhealthy, but that’s the degree to which my addiction affected my judgment.

  I was open about my drinking, too. But it didn’t win me any fans. At a party, actress Marilu Henner, a well-known health fanatic who wrote several bestselling books on the subject, came up to me and rather bluntly let me know that I shouldn’t have been drinking while I was pregnant. I knew she was right, but I didn’t want to be told what I should and shouldn’t do.

  I needed my relief. I gave up my workouts, let my trainer go, and allowed myself freedom to eat and gain weight guilt-free. To satisfy my craving for sour things, I carried a bottle of vinegar with me and poured it over everything. I gained weight steadily, like twelve pounds every three weeks. And I continued to feel sick. The nausea I thought was morning sickness never passed. I was due at the end of June, and I would stare at the calendar, counting the days.

  On days when I wasn’t bemoaning the imminent change to my life, I indulged my curiosity about the miracle occurring inside me, what sort of person fate would have me create. If the baby was a boy, Morgan and I decided to name him James Duke, after his father and my stepdad, Walt, whose nickname was Duke. We couldn’t settle on a girl’s name, but given a choice I saw myself with a daughter. I wouldn’t have wanted an independent troublemaker like me, but I saw myself being able to relate better to a girl. I could take her shopping and dress her up.

  I was thrilled when my doctor read my latest ultrasound and informed me that I was having a girl. I had a thematically appropriate baby show
er at Morton’s restaurant, at which Morgan’s mother, Pamela, and his sister, Portland, represented old Hollywood, and Roseanne Barr made sure everyone knew the new, brash show-business crowd was also present. A smartly dressed black guy crashed the party, but he passed himself off as a friend with such charm and aplomb that Pamela and Porty began inviting him to their own parties at the big house on Pamela Drive.

  They were shocked when we informed them that he wasn’t a friend. All of us had a good laugh. We had an even bigger laugh a few weeks later when another ultrasound showed that the baby was actually a boy, not the girl for whom I now had a stockpile of pink baby clothes.

  But my smile was short-lived. Soon after the shower, my mom expressed concern at the way I looked. I was about six and a half months along, and she had come to visit. I’ll never forget the expression on her face as she stared at me. It was as if she was looking at something no one else could see.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  “I don’t think you have a good doctor,” she said.

  “What?”

  It was such an odd thing to say out of the blue. I didn’t understand. She stepped closer and put the back of her hand against my skin.

  “Something about you doesn’t look right,” she said. “Have you been to see your doctor?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I go regularly.”

  “Then I think you need a new doctor,” she said. “You look like you’re sick.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  She took hold of my hands and looked at them as if she was a palm reader. Like the rest of me, my fingers were fat. I hadn’t noticed anything unusual up to that point. But now that I looked along with her, they did have an abnormal, sausage-like tumescence. My face was the same way: large, but without definition. As she said, I didn’t look right.