Tulisa - The Biography Read Online Free PDF Page A

Hill, near Swiss Cottage. She arrived there a different Tulisa to the one that had last enrolled at a new school. This time, she was ready and on the lookout for trouble. Never again was she going to allow herself to be pushed around at school. Educationally, she has since written, ‘there was really no point me being there’ as she had no interest in learning. Only one teacher – called Miss Shield – had any influence on her. Indeed, Miss Shield had a big influence on her life. When Tulisa bunked off school she would find the teacher on her doorstep, encouraging her to return to school. It was Miss Shield who saw the beautiful gem inside the tough and ugly front that Tulisa felt forced to put up in life. Few other adults in her life managed that. Tulisa and Dappy have both spoken out about education, encouraging their fans to work at school. Indeed, Tulisa has even declared herself in favour of a return to more old-fashioned discipline in today’s schools. She believes that if teachers were once more allowed to give pupils a ‘cane or a wallop’ then society would benefit.
    The bullying she worked so hard to overcome had originally been dominated by suggestions and perceptions of her as a sexually active teenager. However, as we have seen, such perceptions were for a long while far wide of the mark. That ‘while’ ended when Tulisa first had sex with a boy when she was 14 years of age. Despite being two years below the age of consent when she lost her virginity, she now considers that she was in one sense a late, rather than early, starter. ‘I was about to turn 15,’ she told The Sunday Times , looking back on this rite of passage. ‘I was one of the lucky ones to keep my virginity for as long as I did.’ It seems that the hurried, precocious pace at which Tulisa lost her virginity was shared by most of those around her. ‘It’s the environment you’re from, it becomes normal,’ she said. ‘Everyone around me had lost it. We were too mature for our age. We were doing things we shouldn’t. We shouldn’t have been drinking or smoking weed. The first time I went to an over-21s night, I was 13 years old.’
    A sense of the circumstances of her first love-making can perhaps be gained by a statement she made much later in life, discussing the sexual politics of young people in the 21st century. It is a sharp, at times weary, analysis of how sexuality for young people has changed. ‘This generation is really effed up,’ she said, laying down her feeling from the start. ‘Chivalry’s gone because guys don’t have to wait for sex any more. There’s so much more booty available than in the old days, when you’d meet someone and settle down quickly. Now everyone has such high expectations. Everyone thinks they can do better, and girls are so desperate for a guy, they’ve had to fall into the routine. If you want a guy, you’ve got to shag him.’ The interviewer she was speaking to noted that she ended with a sigh. Could that sigh indicate that she was speaking of herself and her own experiences? Did she sometimes sleep with guys because she felt she had to, rather than just because she wanted to?
    Certainly, she had many negative experiences with guys before finding happiness. As if there was not enough pain for her at home and at school, she experienced more hardship when she began dating boys. She said that her first ‘proper boyfriend’ – who followed in the footsteps of a boy called Carlos who she had dated less seriously for 12 months – was violent and abusive towards her. He was a handsome, older man and at first Tulisa was delighted to have won his favour. She had lied about her age to impress him. She was so excited when she would get to stay overnight at his pad. The relationship became a living hell for her though. He routinely and openly cheated on her. He hurled degrading insults at Tulisa, too. He told her she was ugly and worthless. On occasions, he even locked her in the bathroom when