You're Still Perfect

Chapter 5 - Signing Away our Freedom

We had signed with a record label. Simon's very own record label. There was a catch though and a big one. We had also not knowingly signed with Modest! Management. They were the people who were supposed to take care of us. They didn't actually ever take care of us. We rarely got any sleep. They were on all of our backs 24/7. Sometimes we would only get the chance to eat once a day and get to sleep for a max of 3 hours. Simon had pulled me and Harry aside again, he told us we can't even act like we are a couple. That didn't stop us much. We still held hands behind the boys' backs when we took photos, we had the slight touches under the table. After we signed with SYCO we started working on our first album. We had no clue how hard and tiring it would be. We didn't realize how overworked we were going to be. The worst part is our families had no clue about how we were treated and if they knew they weren't allowed to say anything. We had no clue how to write songs let alone produce them. We had people throwing lyrics at us left and right. We were told to sing this or sing that. We did not only have the pressure of SYCO and Modest, we had all of the fans we didn't want to disappoint. We had a lot of fans when we were on the X- Factor, but we had even more, like a scary amount. We had millions and millions of fans from all over the world.

We were talked to constantly by management. Louis and Harry don't do that or Louis and Harry deny that. It was hard to be asked in an interview "are you single" and then having to say yes because Simon didn't want to lose what he had. But, we got past it. We had set alone times so we could have time to be ourselves. Those times didn't last very long, but at least we had them. We were allowed to do interviews of just us at one point, but we had to be very trained and specific about our answers. Simon had us stop doing interviews alone together in general for the public. He always told us we had to have one of the other boys with us when we did do interviews. Simon didn't like the look of us like that. He told us that we looked disgustingly gay. During those interviews we know we didn't mean any of the answers that we said.

When we were on stage, when we toured out first album 'Up All Night' we would have subtle touches, like I would grab his hand as I walked by or I would grab his waist when we went to stand next to each other. Simon was never at our concerts, the only problem was Modest! was at all of our concerts when we would sit down they would tell Harry to sit as far away as possible from me. It hurt just a bit, I will admit that, but I knew that I would get time alone with him after the concert was over. They only lasted for about an hour, hour and a half because we only had released one album at the time. One night we were set to play at a gay bar. Simon was fine with us doing whatever we wanted to while we weren't performing, but once we were he was so harsh on us. I felt like just being myself no matter what Simon had told that night because I felt at home there.

That night I was forced onto an airplane and flown out to Simon's office in Los Angeles, California. Simon had yelled at me for acting the way I did. He said I was acting flamboyant and I was okay with that, but he definitely wasn't. What was so sad was we had support for almost all of our fans. There will always be someone hating anywhere you go. But, there will always be the people that support you and that will love you no matter what. Simon had told me that I could ruin everything he has done for us because he is the one who has worked the hardest. He forced me to sign a non-negotiated contract with no questions asked. It turns out it was for "straight training", that would be where I have to go to these meetings to learn how to act to Simons standards. I was given a "girlfriend", she wasn't really my girlfriend she was what we call a beard. I had to act like we were in love in public and then I would go to Harry behind the public. I said okay and went with it because he told me if I did this I wouldn't lose harry. That was the thing I was most scared about was losing him.

Harry was young, he was naive. It was easy to control him to an extent. There were some things that Simon couldn't control about him. Like the way he talked to me or the way he could get caught staring at me. I knew that he loved me no matter what Simon forced him to say. Simon decided that it was a smart idea to paint Harry as a womanizer to the public eye so that he would seem the exact opposite of who he really was. The reason Harry didn't have long lasting beards was because he was supposed to be the guy to sleep around and has quick toxic relationships. It was hard because having this be his public image hurt him a lot. He really did care for women and would never use them in the way Simon wanted him to. He really did respect them and would never use them as objects. No matter how many times he said that nobody believed him. It sucked because Harry couldn't lie and say that he wasn't in love with someone who he fell so hard for. I had to lie in all the interviews because I could. I could put on a brave face and say I was truly, deeply in love with my girlfriend.