Sophia Foxx was your typical spoiled, out of control, snobby pop star; at least that’s what the media would have you believe.
She had been discovered through a local Australian talent contest when she was just thirteen and was quickly whisked off to the states to begin her career. For her fourteenth birthday she was signed to one of the biggest record labels in America. Her one goal in life had been to make it in the music industry and she certainly had achieved that.
Now, at the age of seventeen, she was one of the biggest names in the industry; she’d won too many awards to count, two of her three albums had gone double platinum (the other, her newest, was set to do the same by the end of the year). She was one of the most influential artists in the world at the moment and there was no doubt that she was the leading female artist in the industry.
She was literally living the dream. All she’d ever wanted was to be able to perform her music to as many people as she possibly could. If she chose to, she could retire before her eighteenth birthday and still have enough money to live comfortably for the rest of her life.
There was just one downside to all this; the media liked to make people think that she was completely different than she actually was.
It had started around the time that she was touring for her first album when she was fifteen. She’d had to abruptly leave in the middle of one of her concerts because she was really sick and had to stay in the hospital for a few days. She apologised to all her fans over twitter and facebook, anyway she could really, and promised to make it up to them all. When she got out of the hospital though she found out that the media had started a rumour that she’s been admitted to rehab for a drug addiction.
They were saying that she was out of control and that she was on a downward spiral and a lot of people seemed to believe the story. At just fifteen years of age Sophia had to learn how cruel the media could be.
Despite everything she carried on the way she always had. She denied the rumours whenever they were brought up in interviews and continued on with her life. It was only the tip of the iceberg though. As she got older the rumours got more vicious and more scandalous; she was sleeping with executives at the record company and she never performed a show sober as far as the wider world knew.
One day her manager called her in and Sophia had thought she was going to have to deny the rumour to yet another person. Instead, she was told to encourage them, to play up the whole ‘off the rails teen pop sensation’ situation. She was shocked at first but then her manager showed her some stats that proved that even the negative publicity was doing good things for her career.
Sophia was now commonly referred to as the ‘stand offish, ungrateful, rich pop bitch’ or some variation of that title. It really bothered her to begin with, but as time went on she got used to it. She used to be overly sweet and innocent but years of this had made her snarky and generally cold.
She got so used to playing the role that she forgot what it was like to be the real Sophia Foxx and no one else noticed; no one but Ashton Irwin.
Her new album had been nominated for an ARIA, so after finishing a recording session the day before she’d had to fly back to Australia to attend the ceremony. She’d gotten out of the plane and been rushed off to get her hair, make up, and wardrobe sorted; there was hardly time for her to breathe.
She barely even remembered arriving at the venue. She’d walked down the ridiculous red carpet, answered a few questions, and then had some photos taken. Now she was sitting at the complimentary bar, scrolling through Twitter, while other people were socialising and winning awards.
Normally Sophia wouldn’t drink at events like this; but she’d had less than five hours sleep in the last day and some of the stuff she was reading made her want to drink until the words were blurry and undecipherable.
