What Would Beyoncé Do?! Read online

  I read this thing once which totally resonated with me. In advertising we like women being sexy. If it’s for porn we like women being sexy because it’s for the pleasure of the man. But if a woman ever just wants to admire herself and be sexy and own her own body, she is vilified, because there is nothing more powerful than a woman who likes herself. We need to stop it with the vitriol.

  When I was younger, I had a slamming body. I grew up skinny. Like proper skinny frickin’ minnie. I would walk through the town centre and see market stalls of Spanx and think, duh, why would women buy that? Just lose the fat, weirdos. At school I was called Twig Face. While all my friends would be in the toilet cubicle at break time sticking two fingers down their throats after devouring a pack of Space Invaders, I would be on my second helping of iced bun.

  If I was eating ice cream in the street and an old man walked past and with a cheeky wink said, ‘Careful, you’ll get fat,’ I’d think, what an idiot.

  Why would you be so rude and interrupt my happy eating time and

  Fat? As if . . . knobhead. Little did I know that by 28, back fat would be a thing.

  Luckily though, given the plethora of issues that the world has bestowed on me, body issues isn’t one of them. I’ve never felt body-conscious. I always had a big butt but since it was behind me I never bothered to do anything about it. In my eyes I have always had an amazing shape. Only now I have what you might call the opposite of body dysmorphia, where I walk into New Look, try on a size 8 pair of jeans that don’t fit around my left big toe and think, well this is very strange . . . obviously New Look has done something to their sizes.

  I’m a size 14 now, a SIZE 14!! I have cellulite on the back of my knees. I mean I have always had cellulite, but it’s spreading. I remember being really young, about four or five, and getting out of the bath and running around naked, wiggling my bum at my mum and laughing like a hyena about how I could make it feel all dimply. Cellulite at the age of four brought me great joy. It brought my family great joy/humiliation.

  Now being older and on the other side of skinny, I find it so upsetting when other people put their own body insecurities on me. I have never had these issues; I’ve got plenty of issues bitches, I don’t need yours as well.

  My experience in America was a real eye-opener. Of course the Hollywood industry looks at you like you are a product, a weight, a height, a colour. And they are shameless with it. I came back to the UK and signed up for the gym.

  The thing is, I do love going to the gym. When I was 19, I fancied the guy who worked in my local gym, so started going every day just to impress him. It’s amazing how sometimes all you need for that dangling carrot is a penis. Carrot is also the wrong word here; it should be doughnut, saying that maybe if I was led by a carrot then I wouldn’t need to go to the gym in the first place, but you catch my drift. My plan worked. I was a size 10 when I joined but had no muscle. Fast forward six weeks of hard-core rowing and sit-ups, and mamma has a four-pack, my gym guy clearly liked it and we would fuck in the middle of the gym after he locked up.

  On a couple of occasions he would drive me to his house in his sports car, but he would always make me wait outside while he went in to clean up. I would think, wow, what a guy, cleaning his flat, he is so sweet trying to impress me. After three months, one of the other personal trainers couldn’t hold it in any longer and said, ‘Luisa, you are such a nice girl, why are you sleeping with that idiot? He’s not good enough for you, it’s bad enough he is cheating on his girlfriend.’

  SAYYY WHAT?!!! Oh yes, he had a girlfriend, who he lived with. And every time I went to his flat unplanned, he would go in first to take down the pictures of them together. And here was me thinking that he just liked cleaning the flat before fucking on the couch. I mean it should have been obvious that the carpet hadn’t been hoovered, but how was I to know? I was blinded by his 5ft 2 frame (I know he was tiny but I am a sucker for a chiselled jaw). I stopped going to the gym after that.

  Don’t get me wrong, I like looking fly, but I also like Greggs (insert sausage and egg McMuffin meal for my non-UK friends *waves*); for me, it’s a healthy balance. So I find myself back from LA and going for lunch with a TV producer, who sits me down in a private members’ bar and says, ‘So Luisa, would you like to order a starter and a main course or a main course and a dessert?’

  Me: Er, sorry bitch, what the fuck makes you think I am not going to eat the fuck out of all three, er bring the bread back *calls waiter*, bring the frickin’ bread back!

  When I am about to sit down and enjoy my motherfucking food is not the time to tell me how many calories are on my plate or how long you went for a run that day; it’s called a happy meal for a reason bitches, stop raining on my parade.

  I don’t like hearing my friends calling themselves disgusting, fat, horrendous, ugly, and grabbing and pulling their skin. I don’t like seeing my beautiful size 8 friend picking around the salad on her plate and not using any dressing and only drinking vodka with diet tonic water. I don’t like seeing my friends not realising how utterly beautiful and gorgeous they are and not living their lives and enjoying their food.

  My belly can look pregnant on some days and skinny on others, depends what I’ve eaten. My size 12 waist and 14 butt, do you know what it means; it means I go out for dinner with friends. It means yes, I will have another mojito, let’s get shit-faced and have a kebab on the way home. It means I am someone who knows how to have fun.

  I know some bitches that save up all month and don’t eat properly so they can afford to pay their rent and buy a Prada designer handbag, and I am thinking, I’m sorry bitches, do you have any idea how much this figure cost me? This isn’t Lidl shit; this is Marks and Spencer’s finest!!!

  I like my life, I like going to dance classes, I like going out, I like having a cocktail, please don’t waste my time with am I the right body shape. Am I skinny enough, make sure I am skinny, guys love skinny, no they don’t, not too skinny, they like curvy like a woman, not too curvy, be less curvy, skinny with curves but curvy who is skinny. Also the most important thing is to not let your thighs touch.

  Sorry, what? My thighs?

  Yeah, your thighs can’t touch.

  What? Of course they touch; my legs are next to each other.

  Yeah, but when you stand with your legs together you wanna make sure there is a gap at the top, so the thighs don’t touch.

  Really? Well I’ve never heard such nonsense in my . . . Oh hang on, mine touch, oh shit, oh my God, is that bad? That’s bad, isn’t it, I never noticed it, oh God, like I didn’t even know that was a thing, that is so embarrassing, they totally touch, that’s horrific, oh my God, that is disgusting, hide me, take me away, someone needs to send me home, quick, wrap me up and send me away to the circus, be like ‘Roll up, roll up, come check out the freak-show bitch whose thighs are touching each other! You’ve never seen anything like it, freak-show bitch whose thighs are touching each other . . .’

  Yes, my thighs might be touching each other, but I’m sorry bitches, if you were this close to my vagina, wouldn’t you start touching yourself? *Drops mic exits stage*

  (Actually it’s one of my opening jokes so I stay on stage for another hour or so, but for the sake of impact in the book . . . totally has left the stage.)

  21.

  I’D DO ANYTHING FOR LOVE, AND I PROBABLY WOULD DO THAT AS WELL

  Things that most people struggle with I find easy, e.g. dropping my pants in front of a room full of people. But things other people find really easy I find really hard. Like change. I hate change, like I really struggle with it. That’s why I hate goodbyes and break-ups, I don’t like anything that doesn’t feel safe or familiar. This can be exhausting. I can travel to different places but then need to eat food that is familiar and set up my room the same in every place I go to. I have even started buying candles and bringing photos with me, even if it’s just for a night.

  I am worse with people. When I love you and you have gone, I hate it. I
t had been over a year since Klaus and my Beyoncé show was keeping me busy, but it was difficult to move on as I was talking about him on stage every day.

  My friends encouraged me to meet someone else, but it just didn’t seem to work. I couldn’t, I wouldn’t meet anyone at my shows, I think guys found me intimidating and any guy who did show interest I didn’t want to date. Especially if he had just seen me on stage, I felt like that was weird, because he would know everything about me and I would know nothing about him. After my shows I would just catch the bus home. I wasn’t ready to have sex with anyone but everyone told me that to get over someone you gotta get under someone else.

  So I called my bisexual mate Dave. He’s a comedian but when he married his partner, they decided to adopt so Dave stopped working and stayed at home with the baby whilst Michael kept working in graphic design. They had recently split up and Michael had taken the baby to his mum’s house.

  Dave was a mess so we would meet up and get really drunk and be self-destructive together. Then one night, the weirdest thing happened. We went out, got blind drunk and we thought as an experiment we should have sex.

  I know the alarm bells should have rung, but I can’t tell you how close we were. He said it would be good for me to get over Klaus, as I needed to get back on the horse, and he wanted to do it because he hadn’t had sex with a woman in years. So we did it, we had sex. I don’t know how he got it up, I just kept throwing my bum in his face.

  It was awkward and weird, we liked each other, so we were nice to each other but I don’t think either of us was at all into it. This was the first guy I was having sex with since Klaus and it was nothing like with Klaus. It’s 2 a.m. in the morning and Dave is trying to thrust me in this really weird friendship sex when all of a sudden he stops.

  ‘What’s wrong?!’ I ask him.

  ‘Er, I think I miss Michael.’

  ‘Oh, ermm OK, you’re still inside me.’

  Oh how superb. We were both missing a penis we couldn’t have. I gave him a cuddle and left. That’s right; I gave him a cuddle, because I am not emotionally devoid.

  I cried afterwards, I don’t know why, I don’t know if it was over Klaus or because I had failed at successfully moving on. Even though it had been nearly a year, I didn’t want to have sex with Dave; I didn’t wanna have sex with anybody, let alone my married best friend. But all my mates were like ‘You have to move on, you have to just fuck someone, you’ll feel better.’

  As I found myself crawling out of his flat, empowerment was not what I was feeling. If anything I felt worse, because now I had had sex with someone different, and it was crap sex. This was awful.

  Plus having sex with me made a grown man think of his husband. I don’t know what I was thinking. When will I meet someone who on having sex with someone else will stop pounding halfway through and say ‘I miss Luisa’? Yeah, that’s the dream. My dream guy to be fucking someone else and missing me. FFS. Can you write that on a Valentine’s card: If I ever fuck anyone else, I will call out your name.

  Oh why am I such a loser? I bet Klaus isn’t doing this, Klaus is happily in love with his girlfriend, bet he holds her after they have sex and says ‘Luisa who?!’

  Don’t be ridiculous; they don’t even mention your name. It’s so unfair; it’s the one who is heartbroken who needs the love more. When it comes to my career I feel so inspired and excited, but in my downtime, in my personal life, why is this ghost still not shifting?

  I start crying at a random bus stop in east London. I sit down next to an old lady and want to ask her for advice. ‘Have you ever felt so heartbroken over someone that you have sex with a friend who then says they miss their husband whilst they are still inside you?’ But I decided against it. She didn’t look like a talker.

  I felt like shit for about a month but me and Dave kept in touch. It was a bit weird but we still tried to be friends, I think we represented the other person’s worst fears though. That neither of us was ready. He missed his husband, it wasn’t his fault. He was having a really hard time but so was I. I didn’t want to be a bad friend and drop him, so we stayed in touch.

  New Year’s Eve and I get a call offering me to MC a gig. I wanted to take it as Dave was back on the comedy horse and he was going to be closing the show. Gigging together on New Year’s Eve, maybe someone would happen? You would think I would learn after the last time, but I still hadn’t had sex and maybe trying to have sex with Dave a second time would be easier? This is how bipolar my life is, career-wise I was having shows of dreams and love from audiences, love-life-wise I was so desperate I was willing to try and have sex with a man who was still in love with another man. Nailing life Luisa, nailing life.

  I spent three hours getting ready. Curling my hair, and not just rush-curling it, I mean curling it in small sections so it’s really tight and curly. Washing, shaving, fake-tanning everything. I looked super hot. Like proper smoking. There was a problem on the tube, and by the time I walked to the venue in heels, I had sweated off any sense of clean.

  I arrived to find a queue around the door and the open-mic’er panicking: people had paid £45 for a three-course meal and London’s best comics. The reality was the restaurant was never told to provide food; there was no three courses. They started panicking and tried to calm the angry customers with plates of hummus. The comedians booked were all open spots. It’s New Year’s Eve in central London. Everywhere was rammed and people had already made their plans.

  I had people complaining and shouting at me all night demanding their money back. I just gave as many refunds as possible. It was their New Year, I wanted them to try and catch a good night. Just because mine was ruined didn’t mean theirs had to be. The promoter was running three nights simultaneously. He had arranged for Dave to open at one venue, middle at another and close at mine; the rest of the acts were all open spots and all on rotation.

  I did my best to appease people, rearranged the room, gave refunds where I could and tried my best to entertain the rest. All three gigs were poorly organised so all my acts were late. I would have to MC longer than usual until finally an act would arrive, sweaty and out of breath, I could see the glee from arriving slowly drain from their faces as they saw the audience and what they would had to contend with.

  Do you have any idea how hard it is to MC to a room full of people who are already pissed off and hate you, all whilst you are dressed up to the nines, wearing heels?

  My patience ended by about 11.35. Dave was meant to be on at 11.30 and I was MC’ing the gig into the ground. At 11.58 he ran through the door, grabbed the mic and we all sang the New Year’s Eve countdown, you know the one, 10, 9, 8, 7 . . . it’s a classic. Dave kissed me on the cheek and started doing his set at 12.01. I don’t think anyone was in the mood for more comedy at 12.01, but the audience seemed happy enough so I just let him get on with it. I was standing at the back of the room patiently waiting for him when I got a tap on my shoulder from a guy in corduroy trousers and a bow tie.

  ‘Are you Luisa?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve heard so much about you, Dave just won’t shut up about you! Your dress is lush.’

  ‘Thanks Michael, Dave’s husband.’ Here I was on New Year’s Day, not even ten minutes into 2014, and I had managed to orchestrate a situation where I would feel like shit. I was happy for Dave, of course, this is where he should be, with his husband. I was disappointed with myself. I thought of Klaus, I thought of all the guys I had ever loved, imagined them all kissing and slow-dancing. I looked around me and saw everyone in slow motion, laughing and embracing each other. Cheers Luisa, happy fucking New Year. Why do I keep trying to fall in love with men who are completely unavailable? Why am I unavailable? And what are the rest of the words to ‘Auld Lang Syne’? So many questions.

  22.

  ROMEO, WHEREFORE ART THOU? ’COS YOU AIN’T IN SINGAPORE

  There is a famous expression that life will keep throwing the same lesson at you until you finally decide to learn
it. I always felt and maybe still do that this is a load of bullshit. If I am always getting hurt in relationships, why can’t the universe cut me some slack and give me some love and happiness instead? And here is what I noticed.

  I give my career so much love, care and attention; the attention to detail is amazing. I don’t let anyone else run or control it and can be viciously protective of my work. I am not like that with my love life. I throw myself at anyone who is nice to me and pray they catch me.

  My career made me feel strong and I came off the antidepressants and was still feeling good, I felt genuinely happy. I was worried that coming off them would mean that the happiness and high I had felt were false, but they weren’t. I still got just as high from doing my shows. I felt stronger and like myself. I felt happy and much better than I was; my work had given me that satisfaction. The sense of achievement filled me with confidence.

  I got invited out to Singapore to do Beyoncé as part of the Magners comedy festival. (PS I know I now use ‘Beyoncé’ as synonymous with my show and not necessarily the artist.) The festival was the first of its kind in Singapore, and the sponsor was paying for the flights. I booked to go out a week early and bought a direct flight from Singapore to Thailand. Take a few days of holiday before the festival started.

  I found an island called Bottle Beach – pure sand, clear blue water, everything I wanted. I spent hours imagining what it would be like if I was here with a man. It was perfect. I could have sex with him in the sea, I could have sex with him on the beach, I could have sex with him in the hotel. Basically I could have a lot of sex. I’d found a cheap hotel app and got booked into the honeymoon suite of this beautiful resort. I ordered champagne with strawberries, a three-course meal and watched Bridget Jones’s Diary in bed. My kinda honeymoon. The wedding to myself.