“I’ve always been very spiritual,” she tells me, out of the blue. “I’m probably more religious and spiritual than people know.” She was baptised in the Greek Orthodox church – her father’s religion – but took communion in the Catholic church of her mother. Her faith isn’t a new-found thing – it is the rock on which her whole life has been built. “I like to go to church on my own, to the local church that I’ve gone to since I was a kid. I wait until it is completely empty and light candles. The place I go to has 12 different icons, and I always go to Mother Mary, on the left-hand side, and I just sit there for half an hour and pray.”
She said that on a night out at the Metropolitan Hotel in London she was plied with alcohol and offered cocaine. She refused to take it. “I’ve never taken coke,” she says now. Really, I say. “Yes, really.” She believes that this was her downfall. “Never in my life did I think I’d wish that I did coke like everyone else.”
“Most people turn to their mums in times of drama,” she says, “but I like to be around my mum when I’m happy. We’re like sponges and she will suck out all my negative energy. If I’m depressed around her, she senses it and becomes depressed. It becomes very unhealthy. It’s a drama in itself.”
And the reason I was taken on board [The X Factor] was because I was this feisty female. So I had to play on that. But anyone who knew me was like, ‘She’s not a bad girl like that.’ Don’t get me wrong. I’ll always be a little bit rough around the edges, but I’m a million miles away from being that person.”
If Contostavlos has one vice now, it would be cosmetic fillers. Before the trial she had her cheeks and lips done and the general opinion is that she didn’t need to. “I don’t get permanent ones,” she says, a trifle defensively. “It’s like every six months you get a top-up, but mine have practically gone. It’s really not as much as people think. I’d lost a stone [before the trial] and I’d look in the mirror and think, ‘That’s not how I used to look.’ Now I’m having collagen waves to try and break it [the filler] down. Have you had a collagen wave? It’s very natural, like a facial, a heat pad that goes over your skin and makes you produce natural collagen cells.” Does it irritate her that people feel they have the right to comment on her looks? “People are lucky I even admit to that s—,” she laughs.
“I want to prove myself musically. I want to bring out as many hits as possible, and then an album. I want people to think Tulisa makes bloody good smashers, and if I don’t get to that point I won’t make an album.”
“I’d find something. This is me. I’m like a f—ing cockroach. Every year I have an apocalypse, but I always survive.” I say that seems sad. Isn’t she more of a lioness? “Nah, it’s fine. Life as a cockroach is good.” And I hope she’s right, truly I do.
Aww. All her interview make me really sad. She's been so beaten down this last little while, but she keeps on fighting. And you can tell she really really wants to prove herself as a musician in order to improve her image.
TFB <3
I think she looks really good here, but I'm happy to hear that she's working to "break the filler down" (whatever that means).
