What Would Beyoncé Do?! Read online

  ‘Oh fuck off then.’

  I caught sight of myself, a 33-year-old woman chasing a man child with two girlfriends. Could I have any lower self-esteem? I was an independent woman, last year I earned enough to buy my mum a Smeg fridge. And here I was struggling to catch a dick, disobeying every rule in How to Get Laid for Dummies.

  Smile nicely and question nothing.

  Don’t fucking cry.

  We left the bar and he offered to drive me home, but first we stopped at Sainsbury’s as he had to get some Tabasco sauce. This seemed like the perfect time to talk about my feelings.

  ‘Look, I don’t know what you want because you say I treat you like a boyfriend.’

  ‘I just want hot sauce.’

  ‘Why won’t you talk to me? This whole thing is getting really stressful for me.’

  ‘I am talking to you. I am sorry you feel stressed, but it’s your own doing, all I can focus on right now is hot sauce.’

  ‘It wasn’t all my doing. What about my feelings?’

  ‘I feel you will be happier once I find hot sauce.’

  ‘Juice, fuck off, what do you want from me?’

  ‘I just want hot sauce, don’t bust my balls and we are fine.’

  ‘OK, OK, I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s fine, so should I get chilli or Mexican spice?’

  ‘Mexican spice.’

  He paid, we walked to the car and he dropped me home. He got out of the car and came round and opened the door for me. It was a clear night, a full moon and the stars were super bright. We were stood underneath the lamp post, both of us in leather jackets.

  ‘Look Luisa, I have told you, I do love you as a friend, but I’m not ready. I have two girlfriends and I miss both of them.’

  I started crying again. He went to get back in the car and I stepped in front of him.

  ‘I’m sorry, I know I’m a mess, I’ve been behaving like an idiot and I hate myself for being this needy and desperate but I’ve got confused with what I want and where I am at, and I didn’t expect to develop feelings for you, like you have been my best friend and I have loved having you in my life and I don’t want to lose that. But then I think it’s weird so I try not to talk to you, and then you call me, no, no, wait, let me finish. I know you are in a weird space and I am sorry if you feel I am putting more pressure on you, that’s the last thing I want to do. Look, I love you, I really do, and I don’t want to keep feeling upset or confused, no let me finish, so I think it’s probably for the best if I just let you go for a bit and we don’t hang out for a while. I probably just need to give you some space and to give me some space.’

  ‘Awww.’ He patted me on the head. ‘That’s really beautiful, but look around, this is not a movie, there are no cameras anywhere, so you can stop all this *mocking my voice* “then I looked at him under the stars and I said I have to let you go”. There will be no letting go, there are no cameras, this is not a film. I am your friend, it’s fine, I have my hot sauce. I’ll call you tomorrow.’

  26.

  SINGLE LADIES’ BALL

  And that was that. The next day I got a call from the Sunday Times. They were doing a front-page centre-fold feature on female comedians and they wanted me in it!

  ‘See,’ said Debi. ‘It’s changing, be patient!’

  I arrived at the photo shoot and there was a team of people waiting. I had people doing my hair, make-up and nails all at the same time. Beyoncé eat your heart out. There was even someone there whose job it was to hold my water to my mouth whilst I drank it through a straw. It was ridiculous.

  I was the first to arrive at the shoot, and so I got to choose from all the dresses. It was either ball gown, sleek and slender or a big fuck-off dress. What would Beyoncé do?! I went for the big fuck-off one of course.

  It was a designer dress, baby pink, and had the longest train. I felt amazing. I looked amazing. The journalist then decided to put everyone else in matching themed dresses. Thank God I had got there first; could you imagine if they had gone for sleek and slender? I would have been devo’d.

  Juice had just been dumped by his two girlfriends, they’d found out about each other and so made the decision of who to date much easier for him. To . . . er . . . cheer him up I sent him a picture of me in the dress. He said I looked beautiful. He said he showed it to his mum (who I had met, and is awesome) and she thought I looked stunning and couldn’t wait to buy the newspaper. I was chuffed.

  I was gearing myself up to leave London again as I had been invited out to Australia to do a three-month tour with ‘What Would Beyoncé Do?!’ This was huge and again I shat myself. Would they get it? Would it be like America? I was feeling nervous about the whole thing and knew I would miss Juice. I’d planned a holiday to Thailand on the way back from Oz and Juice said he might come out and join me.

  Before my Australian adventure, it was coming up to Valentine’s Day and I wanted to do another party. I had signed up to a new promoter who suggested we hold it in a nicer venue, so we booked Islington Town Hall, which can hold up to 450 people and is really fancy and expensive to hire. It’s a gorgeous venue but I could only do it at a higher ticket price, which I really didn’t want. It’s really important to me to keep my shows accessible but the higher ticket price would be the only way to cover the venue costs. Even if I sold all 450 seats I would be making less money than I had the year before, when I played to 180 people in a dirty basement. But my promoter explained it’s all about being seen in the right places, and career progression. I couldn’t find another venue in the short amount of time and I really wanted to do the Valentine’s show party. So I said yes to the deal. I used the fact that it was more expensive to my advantage and pitched it as a Valentine’s Single Ladies’ Ball. The dress code was ‘ball gowns and trainers’. I wanted women to wear any dress they liked, the dress that they had had in their cupboard that they had worn once in five years, their old bridesmaids dress, their old prom dress, fancy dress, whatever it is, just wear that! I wanted people to feel they had a reason to get dolled up and come and have a good time.

  I had only sold 250 tickets and was annoyed that I hadn’t organised it all myself, there was not going to be much of a pay-out from this gig but I didn’t have time to get stressed, the promoter was all over it and I was flying to Australia in a week. Besides, this is why you have a team, so they can do these things for you.

  I called the stylist from the Sunday Times shoot and asked if I could borrow the dress for my gig. It didn’t fit properly or do up but I was so in love with it, I was desperate to wear it for my show. The designer agreed and it was couriered over! Imagine that, a dress in its own taxi!

  I had a killer show and LOVED wearing the dress, even though I had to take it off halfway through. Word to the wise, for your wedding day, get a dress that a) you don’t have to hold up and b) that you can breathe in, ’cos the second I had a Prosecco, I just wanted to throw it off.

  Juice arrived. He said I looked stunning and I told him I loved him and he said, ‘I love you too.’ LIKE HELLO?! The DJ was playing tunes and there were about 150 people still left dancing. I got Juice up on stage and introduced him to my audience. I grabbed the mic and said, ‘Guys, guys, this is my friend in inverted commas, Juice, say hi Juice, he says we can only be friends.’

  The audience started booing, it was hilarious. Juice took the mic and said, ‘Look yeah, she is my friend. I love Luisa but I don’t wanna ruin the friendship.’

  The audience then started chanting, ‘Fuck her, fuck her, fuck her!’ A hundred and fifty people chanting at Juice to fuck me. Brilliant.

  The gig finished and I went to the changing room and he tried to fuck me in the toilet but I wouldn’t let him because we were just friends. Even though I loved him.

  We spent the rest of the night in a bar, snogging and holding hands. He told me his mum loved me and she had never responded like that to any of the girls he had brought home but that I needed to know he couldn’t date me. Besides, I was going to Aus
tralia for three months and he didn’t want to miss me.

  He walked me home. He said he would only walk me to my door and then he had to leave. We got to my door, I promised him that we could get him a taxi but it was cold outside so probably best if he just come inside for now and wait. He came in and I stripped to my bra and kissed him. He said to stop it and order him a taxi. I said OK, but I am just going to stroke your face.

  He grabbed both my arms and pinned me to the bed. ‘Luisa, you either get me a taxi now or I’m gonna fuck your brains out, I’m not playing these stupid games, which do you want it to be?!’ God I really do have the best audiences in the world. I panicked and went to get my phone to call a taxi and he pulled me back down and kissed me and we had sex. I was so nervous, I couldn’t stop talking throughout the whole thing.

  ‘Oh no no no, bad idea, we shouldn’t be doing this, we’re just friends.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘OK, but are you sure, oh fuck, once you put this in, it’s game over.’

  ‘Can you be quiet please?’

  ‘OK, but I am just saying once this goes in *penis goes in*, oh shit oh shit, it’s over, it’s game over.’

  ‘Can you just shut up and enjoy it please?’ *Trying to thrust*

  ‘OK, sorry, I will, I just, fuck, you’re my friend. Fine, sorry, I will. *Goes on top* By the way, I’m really sorry, I have put on a lot of weight, just so you know.’

  ‘Shut up, you look great, you are my Premiership footballer remember.’

  ‘I thought you said I had retired.’ *Bouncing on top of him*

  ‘Nah, you can still play.’

  *Stops bouncing* ‘Awww, thank you.’ *Goes in for a cuddle*

  ‘Luisa, concentrate.’

  ‘Sorry.’ *Goes back to bouncing*

  We had sex all night and again in the morning and then he said no more, back to being friends.

  So that was that, I had sex with Juice, I liked it, but I also felt worried. Like I had somehow let my friend down. The next day, we acted normal, just totally normal. He left in the afternoon and I went and got a pizza. He called me that evening and I asked him to come over, but he said he was busy and already had plans.

  Plans?

  ‘What plans?’

  ‘A girl.’

  ‘What girl?’

  ‘Just a girl from Facebook, she keeps asking me out so I said I would go meet her for a drink.’

  ‘Are you fucking joking?’

  ‘Look, it’s fine, it’s just a drink.’

  27.

  KEEP ON RUNNIN’ . . . LOSE IT ALL

  I flew to Australia the next morning and Juice met me to say goodbye, but I couldn’t stop sniping at him. We Skyped a few times for the first couple of weeks and he never mentioned dates, but I knew he was going on them.

  I was gutted and found it really difficult to keep talking to him. I couldn’t be friends with him any more. I felt so hurt by it. I cut him off and blocked his calls. I was in Australia by myself, crying my eyes out over a man back home. I hadn’t had sex in two years, fucked my best friend and then he goes on Facebook dates.

  I spent the three months in Australia feeling drained and tired and missing Juice. But I couldn’t call him.

  It took a few weeks for me to get a handle on Australian audiences. I was playing to rooms of like 12–30 people. It was tough and my emotional state didn’t help, the audiences didn’t know me and they didn’t know what to expect, and I would feel defeated when they wouldn’t jump on board and then get into the party spirit. But then something amazing happened. I got asked to do a short spot for a gala on Australian television.

  The day of the filming came and I had stressed myself out into relentless tears and a cold sore. I was doing my Beyoncé show every night to a half-empty room and I was exhausted and heartbroken. I didn’t know what material to do but figured my thigh gap joke was pretty short and memorable. Go on stage, drop my pants and done. I wore my woolly trousers from my Beyoncé show because they were my lucky trousers.

  When I did my spot, the audience laughed but it was no big deal. Afterwards I went straight back to my hotel to meet Katerina. Thank God for Katerina. She’d flown out and was doing her show ‘Feta with the Queen’. Her show was blowing up in Greece so it was great to have her in Australia and hang out with her every day. That’s one of the best things about the comedy circuit, you build your circle of friends and then you get to see them at every festival you go to. It’s amazing.

  Katerina came round the night Channel Ten were airing the gala. I had no idea what my spot was going to look like and just prayed it would be funny. I made a note of my Twitter followers and hoped I would see some movement. Twitter was at 6,790; my Facebook page had 3,433 likes. My gala spot went out on TV and I had like three tweets about it. Oh well, I thought it looked good and was funny, so I ripped it and posted it on my page so my mum and friends at home could see.

  As we watched, my clip started getting views: 500, 1,000, 30,000, what the fuck was happening? It was going viral. Holy shit Katerina, I’ve hit 100,000 views! This is crazy! My thigh gap routine was getting shared and people were loving it. It was insane!

  I was so excited. The clip got 4 million views in three days. It had been shared and liked by hundreds of thousands of people. I wished I could tell Juice. I wanted him to like it. Two hundred thousand likes, on my Facebook page, the most I have ever had, and yet I still kept looking to see Juice’s name being one of them.

  The next few days were really exciting for me. I would see comics and they would just be like ‘Hi, saw that clip of yours’ and I’m thinking, oh OK, what do I say to that? Great? Did you like it? I hate passive comments. I hated having to downplay how fucking excited I was. I was so grateful to have Katerina and my Greek mate George there to celebrate with me. George is awesome, he is also an idiot. He once missed his flight from Sydney to London whilst being sat at Sydney airport. He’s Greek and hilarious but partially deaf in one ear, so he kinda shouts at you with love. PS I don’t think his deafness had anything to do with him missing the flight, it was more just him being an idiot.

  I had my favourite Greeks with me and once again comedy was being magic for me.

  The gala clip started having an impact on sales and I was selling more and more tickets and playing to fuller rooms; audiences were beginning to get it! Seven million views, this is amazing, oh my gosh, surely now I can go on The View, and meet Whoopi?! Maybe I could go on Ellen! This will get me Live at the Apollo in the UK; who else has had 7 million views and counting of a gala spot? It could get me a tour. Maybe this is what we have been waiting for.

  Then I got nominated for best show. The Barry Awards are named after Barry Humphries and every year out of all the comedy shows, five or six get nominated for the best comedy show of the festival. And I was nominated. I could have cried! It was Katerina’s birthday; we hadn’t been getting on that well because I had been going mad over Juice and panicking about going viral and she had been having a rough time with accommodation, where she’d moved in with a crazy woman.

  We were eating tapas when I got the call just after midnight. ‘Yay! I’ve been nominated for best show.’

  Katerina said ‘Cool’ and kept eating hummus.

  ‘Cool? You could be a bit happier for me you know, this is really exciting. I know it’s your birthday but you could say more than cool.’ Oh why was I taking everything out on my friends, my best friends?

  ‘Really? Is this what you’re doing to me now? For fuck’s sake, I don’t care that you got nominated, you should be nominated, you should have won fucking everything, but they don’t care about you and I don’t care about them. Whether they nominate you or not, you shouldn’t care, you are a superstar and you know it.’

  I was so stressed. I was burnt out. On the night of the awards, I got dressed up and went along with Katerina to hear the winners. We were sat in a VIP booth, with lots of people crowding around looking at who was on stage making the announcements. My category
came up and all I could think about was Juice. I didn’t win but it was lovely to be nominated.

  I went back to my hotel, got into bed and called my dad. It was the first time I’d spoken to him all year. I didn’t mention the nomination but I told him about being in Australia, and he seemed genuinely happy that I was travelling. He suggested I should be looking to settle down soon though, meet a nice man and think about having babies as I am in my thirties, the joker! I didn’t have the heart to point out the obvious to him, so I played nice and went along with it: ‘It’s not for lack of trying.’ We both laughed, I said goodbye and we ended the conversation. I plugged Cher into my ears, and she soothed my tears to sleep.

  On paper everything looked good, great shows, viral video, nomination. But I didn’t feel good, because what do I do with it? I couldn’t work any harder and yet I was still struggling to see a game plan. I wasn’t secure financially; I was making maybe a grand a month on average, was clearing my old student overdraft and unclearing it again. I am in my thirties FFS. I couldn’t enjoy the good things that were happening for panicking about what I thought should be happening. Things were out of my control and my personal life was crap. I was exhausted and burnt out.

  I got through the rest of the tour and my video was now on something like 10 million views. I caught a plane to Thailand and booked myself for two nights into the same honeymoon suite hotel as the year before. Here I am in Thailand and I am exhausted and crying in the ocean (have I mentioned how much I love crying?). The adrenaline of three months touring is slowly leaving my body and it is debilitating as it takes my joints with it, my knees give in, I can’t walk and I crash and burn in paradise.

  How to filter your social media so everyone thinks you are having a really good time:

  Take everything from above at an angle.

  Take 100 pictures of yourself until you have one where you are showing boobs, legs and tan but it’s done in such an arty way that people will think it is really about the elephant you are stood next to.