Entertainment For Lively Minds
Has every country got a Tragic Pop Queen?
We've got Cheryl Cole who was done the dirty on by Ashley and keeps fainting because she's too thin or has got malaria or something. The Germans have got Nadja Benaissa who is HIV Positive and didn't tell her boyfriends. The Americans have got Rihanna whose boyfriend Chris Brown was so violent he was ordered to keep fifty yards away from her.
I'm wondering, has every country got a T.P.Q.? (Tragic Pop Queen.)
It seems like it. The details vary but they all have some things in common. They're all nubile and photogenic. They tend to go in for famous boyfriends and their romantic affairs are played out in the newspapers. The newspapers like them even more when their affairs go wrong. Their personal lives are discussed on breakfast radio programmes. Twitter is full of unkind gags about them or heartfelt pleas on their behalf.
Can the Massive - particularly those members stranded on some foreign shore or remote outpost of empire - tell us whether there's a T.P.Q. where they are?
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I live in Norfolk
Does Delia Smith count?
I live in Ireland
Does Louis Walsh count?
The pedant in me is bursting to get out
Rihanna isn't American; she's from Barbados. On that note, may I nominate Lindsay Lohan for the USA?
USA
Surely Britney Spears is the ultimate TPQ.
Kylie perhaps.
Even though she spends most of her time in the UK we get plenty of coverage of her love life and health here in Oz
or maybe
Marcia Hines
Delta Goodrem?
Coverage for just about everything except music - does she still perform?
Actually, just about anyone who has starred in a soap opera and released a single might qualify on some level. Couldn't give you names, but a quick flick through the glossies at the supermarket tomorrow will be enough - and all the research I can cope with.
Don't do it, it's not good for you. Just work off the cover pics
Like you I was trying to think of any of the Neighbours/Home and Away crowd that might register elsewhere/anywhere, based on my sum total of bugger all knowledge about the shows in question, but Delta is a good call.
I don't think so
Not many countries have the tabloid level of obsession that we do. I've spent many years in France and most of the Gainsbourgs and Paradis of this world seem far too much in control, despite the odd brain hemorrhage.
Having said that Marie Trintignant was a real tragedy that makes anything that has happened to Cheryl et al seem incredibly trivial.
Different era
But Edith Piaf probably out-does most in terms of tragedy: abandoned by her parents, spent part of her childood blind, grew up in a brothel, addicted to morphine, lost a child to meningitis and a lover to a plane crash, was constantly in and out of rehab, and died of cancer before reaching 50.
what Bridget Bardot
admittedly an actor as well as singer (but Cheryl will be popping up in Hotel Babylon soon just you wait) but she's kept the french gossip magazines busy for decades, even through a bit of politics and animal activism into the mix, the classic fall back of your ageing TPQ.
Or how about Dalida
French Egyptian hugely successful (first artist with a diamond disc) but she and 3 of her exs committed suicide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalida
Remote outpost of Bolton
Has to be Sara(h) Cox. Marries DJ Jon Carter, divorces, child out of wedlock (announced on Twitter). The indignity of being replaced on Radio One Breakfast Show by Chris Moyles. Successfully sued The People for printing nude photos of her whilst on her honeymoon.
"child out of wedlock"?
Hardly tragic, is it? Unless we're all living in a Victorian penny-dreadful....
Is Living Over The Brush
any better?
I'm still not sure
if it qualifies as "tragic".
Listen long enough
to one of her shows. What else would you call it?
Apologies
I thought you implied that having a child out of wedlock was tragic.
In Spain
Here in Spain I suppose the nearest we've got are Luz Casal (Galician singer-songwriter survivor of the 80's "Movida Madrileña" post-Franco pop explosion)and LaMari from Chambao (chillout lead singer, best known for an oft-repeated ad song promoting Andalusia). Both have suffered from cancer.
There are also a lot of acts who tend to pop up now and again on gossip shows usually talking about problems with their love lives or family fall-outs, like the sisters from Azucar Moreno, former Eurovision winner Massiel (who allegedly has a drink problem and once fell out of a window), and former child stars Karina and Marisol (the latter whio tries v. hard to avoid gossip shows).
Another former child star Joselito - "the little nightingale" - had a seious drug problem but that's getting a bit off-topic.
Surely it's got to be La Pantoja
Although more a torch singer than a pop queen proper, she does tick all the right boxes. She consolidated her career by milking her role as "Spain's widow" (her hubby was a bullfighter who died in the ring) for decades, during which time a series of "battles" with weight problems, lesbian innuendo, trouble with the taxman, the travails of her flaky son and pap-saturated trips to visit her even flakier boyfriend in jail have also featured heavily.
La Pantoja! How could I have forgotten?
How could I have forgotten La Pantoja. One trash TV show actually showed pictures of her lardarse layabout excuse for a son waving his "manhood" at the paparazzi. Her latest album cover - or maybe the promotional poster for it - was a parody of Hello magazine: http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kyakkc16Za1qawz7go1_500.jpg
Her (now ex-) boyfriend was a political colleague of Jesus Gil, ex mayor of Marbella, ex Atletico Madrid Manager and subject of this little ditty by Scotland's finest - Prolapse: http://bit.ly/cXwRav
Here's a video of Jesus Gil at his finest
how about Selena
from Mexico, who ticks all the boxes and more including a violent death at the hands of her own fan club president.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selena.
Would also include a couple of performers who possibly think of themselves as being not pop stars but fulfilled the TPQ roles for the homeland. Sinéad O'Connor for Ireland and Björk Guðmundsdóttir for Iceland who may be serious artists but have had enough red top action and airport flare ups to earn their tiaras.
Agree about Sinead, not Bjork though
Sinead has been through the wringer, what with the abusive childhood at the hands of parents and representatives of the Holy Roman Empire; the public vilification; controversial behaviour; tabloid infamy; coming out and going back in again; ordination into that obscure sect; etc.
Bjork? There was indeed that marvellous dust-up with that reporter at the airport, but I'm struggling to think of anything else that qualifies her as a TPQ. To me she's far too talented, grounded (yes, I really think she is, despite her "Nordic Pixie" rep) and in control of her career.
I suppose she's not totally tragic
but:
Use to go out with Goldie (5 points)
She had a stalker (15 points)
I was forgetting...
María Jimenez... in and out of gossip progs with accusations of being beaten by her (ex?) husband Pepe Sancho. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_Jim%C3%A9nez
The blonde one from Abba
Lives like a hermit, married her stalker, etc. Sweden's tragic pop queen.
I think she deserves
being called Agnetha (Fältskog) but yes she does seem to have made hard work of fame.
Here he is, the stalker (and the Swedish policewoman)
Poor Agnetha, she don't half choose 'em. The sang-froid of the Swedish policewoman is impressive. He is not allowed in Sweden anymore...
Good grief that's a sad, sad tale.
Poor Agnetha.
Whitney Houston's got a fair old track record too.
Not sure if that pun was intended or not. Anyway, abusive hubbie, drugs, tragic decline and all.
Tragic pop queen?
Boy George surely
Elton
I'm surprised no one's mentioned dear old Reg from Pinner... hair problems, court cases over money, divorce, addictions......