In juvie, I was exposed to a whole new world that I had no idea existed: guns and drug dealing on a semiprofessional level, prostitution as a means of survival, and violence as a way of communication. I found this last one out the hard way one evening whilst taking a bath, when a group of boys kicked the door down (just to scare me, they said). And then there was another memorable time a boy burst into my room and set fire to my bed while I was in it. I escaped unscathed, but this was certainly not the life I had planned for Little Amanda.
Fast-forward a few decades to my Hillary Clinton interview on The Conversation, when she reminded me that children need just one person to believe in them in order to reach their potential. She had no idea how much I knew that to be true. Many of the kids in juvie didn’t have that one person, and at the time it felt as though I didn’t, either.
The bed-burning incident was apparently alarming, even to the hardened juvie staff, and they decided I was in more danger inside the home than out. To my monumental relief and after many months of juvie living, I was released back to the care of my mother and found myself living at the home I had wanted to get away from six months earlier.
My mother was so scared I would disappear again that I was only allowed out of the house to go for walks around the block with our family dog. I had the added annoyance of being followed by paparazzi wherever I went, as by this time I was dream fodder for the tabloids. A teen runaway from a posh family. The UK loves a good “girl gone wrong” story, especially if it involves privilege—and I provided an endless supply of entertainment. The paparazzi followed me day and night, documenting my every move, which was pretty limited at the time, but nonetheless the constant attention and public analysis of my life was a living nightmare. When I eventually went back to school, this time to a public school called Holland Park Comprehensive, I was forced to eat my lunch in the middle of the cafeteria because the paparazzi were always at the windows looking for me. This was no way for a fifteen-year-old girl to live, and that period of my life caused severe trauma that took me, no joke, the next twenty years to recover from.
It was really hard to go back to a family that, as I saw it, had given me up to the government, and I wanted to get out of my mom’s house as soon as I could. It’s clear to me why so many women stay in less than ideal situations, just for a roof over their heads. During this time, I learned firsthand that financial security means freedom, and boy, did I take note.
If I wanted to make my own choices in life, then Little Amanda would have to learn how to provide for herself, both emotionally and financially. That continues to be my driving force all these years later.
2.
Getting a Job That Doesn’t Suck—Even If You Went to Juvie and Left School at Fifteen
I began working odd jobs as a teenager—quite literally. My first paid gig happened before the whole juvie situation. I was hired to be a model for Clarins body lotion, my first big modeling moment, which featured a picture of me lying facedown on a bed, with my naked body covered in a swirl of body cream, as if someone had jerked off in a perfect circle onto my back. Happily, my modeling career got another chance after that anticlimactic false start. My next opportunity came when I was booked for a swimsuit shoot on the island of Capri, for an Italian fashion label called Sicily. I loved Italian food and boys, so I was really optimistic about this trip.
After taking a plane and a boat from London, I arrived on the island of Capri and checked in at the super chic hotel. I got myself settled in, unpacked, searched for the room service, and had some pasta and ice cream sent up to my room, which was delivered by the most handsome room service guy I had ever seen. I thought about inviting him in but remembered my ungodly early call time of 6:00 a.m., so I passed on him and got a good night’s sleep.
The next morning I ate a full breakfast complete with eggs, pastries, and some super strong coffee to wake myself up, and got to the set excited and ready to go. My first outfit was an ’80s Baywatch-style white one-piece that I felt really foxy wearing.
As I stood in front of the crew of thirty people in my Baywatch attire for ten minutes, twenty minutes, eventually my confidence was replaced with crippling insecurity and I began to not feel so hot anymore. Yet again I got a familiar feeling that something wasn’t quite right.
Sure enough, the art director, photographer, or someone in charge came up to me and said, “Thank you, Amanda, you can go back to your room now.”
The negative self-talk started right away.
You shouldn’t have eaten that pasta, your stomach is sticking out. You aren’t model material, they made a big mistake hiring you. You will never amount to much, you will never succeed, you may as well give up.
My second opportunity to become a supermodel had gone horribly wrong.
Lesson 1: Getting fired is part of succeeding
My booking agent would later tell me the client felt I was too “shapely” for the look they were going for. But I already knew what they thought—I didn’t need him to tell me. My stint in juvie had taught me how to read a room like a pro. And the look on their faces when I walked out in that white Baywatch swimsuit told me everything I needed to know. In their minds, I was too fat to be in their fashion campaign. My already fragile self-esteem took yet another hit. So I did what I knew how to do best: I went back to my hotel room, got into bed, and ordered cake and more ice cream, but sadly it was delivered by a not-so-cute room service guy this time.
I lay on the bed staring at the ceiling with tears streaming endlessly down my face, my chances of financially supporting myself crushed once again. I thought about the words a wise woman once told me, “If you can find a job you love, then it isn’t a job.” I wish I could remember who said it because I’ve lived by that philosophy ever since. From the moment I realized I needed to financially provide for myself, I have tried to find a way to turn what I’m passionate about into a sustainable career and have consistently asked myself, “How can I earn enough money to support myself and be of service to my maximum capacity?”
What I was doing wasn’t working, and it was time to rethink the game plan.
So if I wasn’t going to be a supermodel, what could I do?
I applied for any job I could. My local pizza place called Pucci’s Pizzeria, a clothing store, Snappy Snaps the one-hour photo lab. No one would hire me, after all I was fifteen, had no work experience, and no obvious skill set. One night I met a guy in a bar (but of course) who told me about a new late-night TV show called The Word that was looking for a host. At the time, the UK had only four channels and certainly nothing that appealed to a fifteen-year-old girl like me. I had never thought about being on TV before, but I needed a job, and my time in juvie had taught me how to talk to anyone about anything. So I showed up for the audition and, to my complete surprise, five days later was offered the job. Little did I know that all the rejection from previous jobs had led me to the exact place I needed to be, and that my life was about to drastically change.
From the first show, my gig was doing the live interviews. I’m going to own this one and admit that even at age fifteen I enjoyed my job and was damn good at it. I had the perfect amount of fearlessness, and it helped that I usually did my interviews drunk. What better way to handle the terror of hosting live TV in front of over five million viewers?
When The Word became an overnight success, I did, as well.
I think there needs to be a handbook on how to handle the biggest mindfuck of all: being accepted, admired, and adored just because you’re suddenly, blazingly famous. I had inherited my earlier fame through circumstance, and being a teenager hosting a now infamous late-night TV show made me a household name on another level.
I was painfully young, and my heart and soul were ill-equipped to handle the attention of so many people and the unrelenting viciousness of the British media. Yet my emotional pain was so great that all the attention distracted me in a most welcome way. Being treated like you’re special feels great at first, especially for som
eone like me, who felt invisible for so long. But without some professional support or a secure family unit to lean on, fame completely distorted my perception of myself, which took years to rightsize.
People don’t believe me when I say being famous did nothing to contribute to my happiness. According to a recent study, fame is the number one most desirable job for teen girls.
Sadly, we’re living in an age when self-promotion is constant, and the number of clicks, views, subscribers, and likes on social media accounts is a barometer not only of popularity but also of self-worth.
I’m not judging it, but it’s just smoke and mirrors. It’s not real. Unlimited amounts of attention appear to be the cure, filling the gaps and healing the heart, but from my own experience, I can say that fame is just a temporary Band-Aid covering a much deeper wound. Real and lasting self-worth comes from consciously creating a life that you’ve earned and that is authentically yours. Your life doesn’t disappear when you’re unfollowed.
Six months after I got hired on The Word and started populating every tabloid on a daily basis, I sat next to John Taylor, the bass player for Duran Duran, at a matinee play. I was completely unaware of who he was. Maybe it was the twelve-year age gap, or that I was into punk, not pop music. He made me laugh and immediately struck me as being a kind man, and I was ready for some more kindness in my life.
We started dating, and the tabloid media had a field day. They reported us as being together from that very first meeting. From that moment onward, every street we walked, every party we attended, every art opening we went to, every public kiss we exchanged became daily tabloid fodder and material for cultural commentary. You can imagine the reaction when I got pregnant with our daughter and we then married, when I was the ripe old age of nineteen.
After two years of hosting The Word then becoming a mother, I realized my job and the lifestyle that came with it just didn’t fit with who I was anymore, and most of all, who I aspired to be. At the time, I was getting offers for my own TV show, but I just couldn’t bring myself to say yes. On the surface it seemed like a no-brainer—who wouldn’t want their own TV show?—but I was exhausted from the insanely fast-paced life I’d been living, and from the self-obsession that went with having that much attention focused on me at such a young age.
I admitted to myself that, although I was making good money, I could not have been more miserable. This was the first time I got an inkling that happiness truly is an inside job.
Although seemingly big on the outside, my life had become extremely claustrophobic. I felt as if I were living in a tiny glass goldfish bowl, so I quit my desirable job, packed a suitcase (literally, a single suitcase), left my big London brownstone with food in the fridge and laundry in the hamper, and split to Los Angeles with baby and hubby in tow.
People thought I was crazy. No one could understand why I would quit my cushy life. But I knew that if I didn’t leave my life in London, it would quite literally be the death of me.
Lesson 2: Take risks
Our new life in Los Angeles was quite a culture shock and couldn’t have been more different from what I left behind in London. We rented a one-bedroom guesthouse deep in Laurel Canyon, where I knew no one. I didn’t venture far from home, staying within a two-mile radius most of the time. I went from driving a new Porsche to buying a two-thousand-dollar used orange Jeep Cherokee that broke down on a weekly basis. I was only twenty, and for the first time, my life felt more age appropriate, more authentic, and, most important, it was MINE.
Despite having been paid well for my work on The Word, I had not saved any money, which was a big mistake. John obviously had savings from Duran Duran, which relieved me of immediate financial worry. Not having to obsess over money was a huge luxury that is not lost on me and allowed me to focus 100 percent on mothering Atlanta for the first two years of her life. But by 1995 it was sadly clear to me that my marriage was falling apart and was not going to survive. Despite being terrified about how I was going to cope, living in a country where I knew very few people and having little financial security, I knew separating was the right thing for me to do.
I didn’t exactly have a lot of job skills, and my work history was unusual to say the least. I had been taking acting classes, which I loved, but—aside from getting a small role in the film Four Rooms—I really hated being a struggling actress. I was offered only the most clichéd roles: basically anything that required me to show my boobs and play dumb, which has been the mandate for many female roles until very, very recently. Part of the reason I’d left London for LA was that I wanted to live a genuine life, and I didn’t even know what that was yet, but I knew I didn’t want to pretend to be anyone else, especially someone’s stereotypical fantasy. I needed to spend more time discovering what my own reality was. But this realization did nothing to change the facts. I was still a single mom who could not survive on child support alone. I needed and wanted to work.
I thought back on the lesson I learned after the Italian swimsuit shoot, that the best job was one that honored my truth, my skills, and my passions. But how do you get to your truth? How do you identify your strengths and talents and then make a career out of those things? I started by asking myself some serious questions:
What can I contribute to the world?
What is unique about me?
What brings me joy?
What steps do I need to take to help myself achieve this goal?
After I was able to answer these simple questions, I literally drew myself a road map. I’m a firm believer that if you don’t have a clear goal in mind, you can’t expect the universe to support you in reaching it. Even as I write this, I have sticky notes listing my dreams and aspirations stuck on the wall over my desk. One of the notes reads, “Write a book.” And never mind that it has taken me five years to write, here I am actualizing that dream.
From the moment Atlanta was born, I was obsessed with documenting her life with my camera. I know what I’m about to say is shockingly codependent and maybe disappointing, but for many years the men in my life were largely responsible for inspiring my interests and hobbies. Until I was about thirty, if a boy was interested in something, I’d fully educate myself on that subject. And over the years I have learned a lot about everything, from flying planes to rock climbing, from basketball teams to horror movies, none of which I have any interest in but I learned about as a way to connect with whatever dude I was into.
However I came to love it, photography was a medium in which I could express myself, without anyone else’s permission, whenever and however I wanted. I was sick of needing other peoples’ permission to create, and photography allowed me to tell stories and not be a subject of them, which was such a relief to me.
Lesson 3: Ask people who know more than you lots of questions
I was enamored with photography and educated myself in every way I could. I went to museums and galleries, and spent hours at bookstores reading books and magazines and studying the images and words of people I admired. I fell in love with reportage photographers like Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, Mary Ellen Mark, Corinne Day, and Weegee. Perhaps because I was searching for the truth about the world, their images struck me as searingly honest, and that resonated with me.
Photography made my heart happy and challenged my perception of the world. Once I committed to pursuing a career as a photographer, I was relentless. I made a conscious choice to ignore the very loud critical voice in my head telling me I couldn’t possibly be a real photographer, despite having been told that by so many people. I can’t tell you how many times I was literally laughed at and told I’d never succeed. And if I thought I’d experienced sexism in front of the camera, it was even more rampant, though covert, in the photography industry, which to this day is still dominated by men. Whenever I’m hired for a shoot, I ask the art directors how many female photographers they hire. The answer is usually zero. Sadly it’s the same in many other creative industries, too. The sexism and systemic patriarchy buil
t into the fabric of our world render the desirable professions—those that bring satisfaction, a good income, and acclaim—largely as the domain of men. Which is why I’m so hell-bent on changing the ratio.
For years I couldn’t get a job as a photographer that didn’t involve me being in the image somehow. But I refused to give up, because I knew what I was capable of. I had survived a lot and had already been successful once, so I knew that if I worked hard, then surely I could do this—even if I did have failures along the way. I have yet to meet a successful person who hasn’t been doubted and failed a lot. Arianna Huffington once told me, “Over ninety percent of the people, including the people who loved me, thought the Huffington Post wasn’t going to succeed.” Knowing this has given me much comfort over the years.
I remember the day I finally allowed myself to own my new professional title. I was in the park with my kid, and someone asked me, “What do you do?”
Without a moment’s hesitation I said, “I’m a photographer.”
In a movie, that moment would have been accompanied by music and a montage of kick-ass images. But the fact is I had to keep working really hard to finally be given real opportunities. People seemed to love taking the piss out of me, and even after I started landing respectable gigs, misogynistic art directors felt free to openly disrespect me and my work. One looked at my portfolio, aimlessly flipping through until he paused on a cover photo of Keanu Reeves that I’d shot for Vogue Hommes. (By the way, I was the ONLY female photographer in that entire issue.) In the picture he’s standing in a swimming pool wearing a brown shirt, his hair wet, leaning toward the camera, looking insanely hot.
It's Messy Page 2
