She doesn’t, however, worry about groupies. “Most of the time they’re mingy or
very young. So they’re only going to see them one time, for a night. Unless
they follow them around.” Her policy is don’t ask and you won’t get hurt. So
she doesn’t scour his e-mails or make check-calls to his hotel room at 3am.
It was after her music career imploded and the birth of Alfie that her
recreational drug use tipped into addiction. Supergrass were at the peak of
their fame and Lowe had her pick of velvet-roped parties. What she
discovered was the vacuity of the celebrity lifestyle: the emptiness of
attending premieres of movies you didn’t much like, being given an £800 It
bag you’d never have chosen, filled with beauty products which already crowd
your shelves.
“I was living a life with no soul. I was in every magazine going and I
remember picking up one and it said ‘I want to be in Pearl’s World’. And I
remember thinking, ‘Pearl’s World is crap!’”
I say that of all the celebrity cliques, the Primrose Hillbillies looked like
the most attractive. All those effortlessly cool young parents, having
picnics with their puppies and curly-haired children. “Isn’t that deceiving,
though,” she says. “You can never look at a magazine and think, ‘They must
be so happy’. It’s a myth. You read about all these famous women who are
size 0 and have incredible diets. They’re not on diets, they’re on drugs.
They’re in rehab ‘for exhaustion’. No, they’re not – they’re on drugs. It
drives me crazy.”
With no career, a full-time nanny and Goffey away on tour, Lowe lost all
purpose. Heroin filled the void. She looks back with shame and regret now on
her selfishness and her absence from her children’s lives. “The nanny was
their mum for four years and she was incredible. I don’t know how she
lasted. I was a mess.”
Lonely, bored and wrecked by heroin, Lowe tried to pull Goffey back to her
side, almost sabotaging his career, too. When Supergrass were recording an
album she dragged him from the studio to attend a party. In a colossal row
in the car, he fractured his hand, causing the band’s US tour to be
cancelled. Before another tour, she took a cry-for-help overdose so Goffey
rushed to her side and Supergrass hired a replacement drummer. He was barely
involved in the band’s last two albums. So moving to the country has
benefited Goffey, too: Supergrass’s forthcoming CD contains many of his
songs.
Besides, he needs to keep working. The big house in the country is rented.
They blew an immense pile of rock gold. Given she and Goffey enjoyed an
infamous wife-swapping holiday with Jude Law and Sadie Frost, Lowe deserves
credit for not writing the kiss-and-tell which would have resolved all money
worries. Instead, her book is a serious portrait of addiction, low on naming
names.
Of the wife-swapping allegations she will say nothing, except that drugs took
her to places she’d never otherwise have gone, including into bed with the
wrong people. She denies the rumour that the Ecstasy tablet, accidentally
taken by Sadie Frost’s daughter at Alfie’s birthday party at Soho House,
came from her handbag. Pearl says she was sober at that point and, since she
is honest enough to admit that Alfie once ate her sleeping pills, I tend to
believe her.
The one celebrity saga she cannot avoid concerns Daisy’s paternity. Around the
time of her daughter’s conception, Lowe was involved with an American
dietician – called “Bronner” in the book – but also had a one-night stand
with a close friend, Gavin Rossdale, who subsequently became lead singer of
Bush, a hugely successful band in the US. She assumed the father was
Bronner, who left and lost contact when Daisy was a baby, and made Rossdale
her godfather. He was a close and caring aide to Lowe as a single mum. But
at 14, Daisy tried to search for Bronner on the internet and, at the same
time, Gavin and Pearl, seeing Daisy’s long, lean frame (Rossdale is tall,
Bronner slight) began to wonder.
“Gavin came to me saying I think we need to find this out,” says Lowe. “But
when we set up meetings to have DNA tests he didn’t show up. And it got
weird and he stopped returning my calls.” Reports at the time suggested that
Rossdale’s marriage to the American singer Gwen Stefani had been rocked by
this revelation. Matters turned legal. Lowe compelled him to take a test and
Daisy was indeed revealed to be Rossdale’s child. Pearl sued for Daisy’s
school fees, which Goffey had paid since she was six.
“This guy’s a millionaire, he can at least give Danny back the
money he’s spent,” says Pearl. “It’s been a traumatic time for us. I lost my
best friend, Daisy lost her godfather and doesn’t have a dad. And she lost
self-worth. Because when someone rejects you like that, you wonder what’s
wrong with you. I really don’t care if I never see him ever again. He’s been
incredibly vile. He saw Daisy at first, but he was always rude to her, he
made it feel like it was her fault. It was her 18th birthday and there was
no present, no phone call, nothing.
“And when he had his baby with Gwen, Daisy’s half-brother, he didn’t even tell
her. She’s never seen the baby. Not to take responsiblity and not to let
your daughter even meet her grandparents and see her heritage is pretty
sick.”
But, she adds, this tawdry episode has made her feel even more keenly that
family is all that matters. She realised she had nothing in common with many
friends except the drugs they shared. Lowe is careful around bad behaviour
now and, bored by drunks, leaves London events early. Being sober and away
from distractions has – along with her debts – revived her work ethic.
Besides writing her book, she designs dresses in vintage lace. A rack of
Piaf-esque black frocks hangs in her kitchen, awaiting private clients or
destined for West London boutique the Cross.
At first, fearing her country neighbours would have a low opinion of her from
reading the papers, she and Goffey kept a low profile. But now they attend
village fêtes, horse shows, eat in gastropubs, socialise with fellow parents
at the boys’ school.
Some old friends visit at weekends to hang out and make music. Sadie Frost
came once, though Lowe feels they belong to different worlds now. The
party-girl Pearl is no more. “I feel really bad when people do come round,
because I go to bed about 11,” she says. “I bet people think I’m terribly
boring. Usually, when I’m sitting with people, I’m thinking I just want to
go to bed and read my book.”
Pearl Lowe’s autobiography, All That Glitters: Living on the Dark
Side of Rock and Roll, is published on Thursday by Hodder & Stoughton,
£16.99
