The Sharleen Spiteri exclusive: Shar snaps back
from the Daily Record - 19 September 2003 by John Dingwall

Shaken after a terrifying car chase, Sharleen Spiteri hits out at the paparazzi who just won't leave her alone
TEXAS star Sharleen Spiteri threw her car into reverse, narrowly missing the massive blacked-out four-wheel drive jeep that had been tailing her and baby daughter Misty.

Moments later she was out of her car and running to confront the mystery driver who had been parked outside her London home overnight.

The terrified Scots singer had watched the car shadow her through the city in her rear view mirror.

``I was taking Misty to a birthday party and a car was following me. It was a four-wheel drive with blacked out windows. Whenever I turned a corner, he followed. When I pulled in to the kerb, he pulled in. It was freaking me out,'' she said.

``I was actually really scared. I didn't know why someone was in a car following me. Misty and her little friend and her nanny were all in the car with me.''

The Scots beauty soon decided enough was enough and leapt out to give the driver a piece of her mind.

``I thought, `I've had enough'. I rammed the car into reverse and pulled right up just inches from his bumper, jumped out the car and said, `What the f*** do you think you're doing?'.

``He wound his window down an inch and said, `I'm taking your photograph'. So I told him, `I've got my kid in the car and a mobile phone in my hand'. I said, `999. Strange man in car following woman with baby. Doesn't look good does it?'.

``He went away, but I was losing it. I had already had one run-in with them that day and it could have been some weirdo.''

That frightening experience left the 35-year-old shaken and now she has hit out at the London-based paparazzi who, she says, are making her life a misery.

She says: ``I get photographed at least 10 times a day from the moment I walk out the door and I hate it. It's a total invasion of my privacy.

``If I go to a premiere or a party, or the likes of Stella's wedding, I'm aware that I'll be photographed. But if I go round the corner to buy a pint of milk, how uninteresting is that?''

She added: ``Recently, I told one guy to `f*** off'. He said, `I'm trying to make a living' to which I replied, `Well, I'm trying to live my life'.

``He told me, `Well if you don't want photographed, you shouldn't go out'.

``What does he suggest that I get 55 assistants to go out and do my shopping for me?

``Quite a few people on the street have said to me, `Don't let them get you down'.

``The bad thing is they shove people out of the way and I'm the one who looks like an a**hole.

``I remember a few days after Misty was born I went to the Camden Post Office to return my TENS machine.

``Then some woman journalist wrote that I obviously didn't care about the way I looked because I was rather plump.

``I couldn't believe it I had a week-old baby. I was totally devastated, more so because a woman had written it who I know is just a nasty cow.

``It's one of the main reasons I have no interest in being a celebrity whatsoever. I have never courted the cameras.''

Sharleen is back in the spotlight, however, as Texas prepare for the release of their latest album, Careful What You Wish For, due for release on October 20.

The first song from the album, Carnival Girl, is already picking up airplay and will hit the shops on October 6.

Despite 20 million album sales in the bag over the band's 23-year career, Sharleen is taking nothing for granted.

``If the album doesn't sell any records then I'll be worried,'' she tells me. ``But if it doesn't get to No1, but sells sh**loads of records, I don't care.

``Of course, I would love to sell 50 million albums because I want as many people as possible to hear our records.

``I feel this is a new chapter for Texas.''

While this fresh chapter is exciting for the singer-songwriter it is also soaking up vast amounts of her time and she has admitted it means there's no chance of her having a spare moment to consider marrying boyfriend Ashley Heath.

The Texas star says she is happier than ever now that she has settled down with Ashley.

But she says the pair have no plans to walk down the aisle just yet and admits the aforementioned media attention has played a major part in her decision to put tying the knot on the backburner.

As we relax in the beer garden of Sharleen's local in Primrose Hill, she says: ``I don't know if we will ever get married.

``There's the organisation of putting it together and I don't know if I can be bothered with the media circus that would go with it.

``I have nothing against marriage and I think it's a really good thing to do, but we just don't have the time to do it.''

Sporting two platinum rings on her wedding finger, Sharleen adds: ``I haven't got married in secret or anything. Ashley gave these rings to me when I had Misty. They are my Misty rings.''

Sharleen admits she set a very high standard when it came to finding the man of her dreams after being given sex advice as a teenager by her mum.

Sharleen recalls: ``The best advice I was ever given was when my mum said to me, `You know what you've got is the most special thing you have, and someone is not worth giving it to if they are never going to appreciate what it is they are going to get'.

``I remember being like, `You ain't worth it' whenever men tried it on. My teenage years were spent saying, `You ain't getting it'.

``But my mum never said to me, `Don't do something'. It was always my decision.

``My dad nicknamed my first boyfriend Lurch. He'd say, `Where's Lurch tonight?' I don't remember his name because our household always referred to him as Lurch. It didn't last long. I was going through my Goth period which was quite interesting. I was an awkward teenager and very Goth-like.''

Now she says, Ashley is just as protective of little one-year-old Misty as her parents were of Sharleen as a youngster.

She laughs: ``It's tougher if you are a father because the big thing for a father is `I have a girl.' The alarm bells are going.

``I've listened to Ashley talking to Misty and I'm laughing my head off. I can hear him giving her a bath and he is trying to brainwash her.

``Men are so protective of their daughters.''


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