“There are so many stories,” says Sophie Cunningham, wearily. “So many I was just not able to tell, and that’s because of money and power – success and celebrity goes a hell of a long way to keeping people quiet.”
Cunningham is the director and producer of a new documentary confronting the music industry’s dark side, rock music in particular; harassment and abuse against women and “relationships” involving megastars and teenage girls, an issue that was hidden in plain sight for years.
Look Away features interviews with women who make allegations against Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Guns ‘N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose, as well as the late music producer and songwriter Kim Fowley, who managed all-female teen rock group The Runaways, co-founded by Joan Jett in the 1970s. But Cunningham says there could have been many more.
Post #MeToo, Hollywood and the film industry has had the start of its reckoning after disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein was jailed for rape and sexual assault in 2020, although it seems sadly inevitable that there is more to come.
For the music industry, says Cunningham, who worked on Look Away for two years, we have only seen the tip of the iceberg. To clarify, the allegations made by other women she couldn’t feature in the documentary – she’s talking about “lots and lots of [stars] who are very, very popular”.
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Look Away shines a light on how the music industry fostered a culture where relationships with underage girls – statutory rape – were normalised, and how many behind the scenes turned a blind eye to aggressive sexual behaviour.
“It seems like an area that hasn’t yet had its #MeToo moment and I think desperately requires it,” says Cunningham.
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Julia Holcomb’s story is well documented, despite the fact she never wanted to share it – it was Tyler himself who first brought the story to light, writing about their relationship in his 2011 autobiography.
Holcomb met the Aerosmith frontman as a fan at a gig in Portland, Oregon, when she was just 16 and he was in his mid-20s in 1973.
Because the age of consent in the state was 18, she claims Tyler persuaded her mother to sign over guardianship to him, making her his ward, so she could travel with the star on tour. She also claims she became pregnant with his baby, and was forced into having an abortion.
Through the lens of 2021, laid out in black and white, it all seems pretty shocking. But perhaps more shocking is that for years, this kind of behaviour wasn’t at all shocking.
“I think a lot of the times the artists themselves have written about their escapades with their girlfriends or what they got up to during this era and you never really hear from the women,” says Cunningham.
“Musicians were these godlike creatures, especially at that time. There were power structures that enabled them; as long as they were selling records and as long as they were making money for the big record companies, I think there was a general understanding [they] could pretty much get away with anything and also it could all just be written up as an excess of the time.
“It’s very, very easy to think ‘It was different then, it was hedonistic, the world was a different place’. But I think it’s clear from the women who’ve spoken out that their experiences as [teenage] girls impacted them in the same way that they would if it happened to [teenagers] now. It’s not a different era, it’s just that we look at it differently.”
Sheila Kennedy is another woman featured in the documentary, speaking about an experience with Axl Rose in the late 1980s when she was 18. Kennedy was a Penthouse “Pet of the Year” and says she was invited back to a party at a hotel suite with the star. She accuses of him of physically abuse – grabbing her hair and dragging her – before they had sex.
Jackie Fuchs, bassist with The Runaways – who was known as Jackie Fox at the time – also shares her story, accusing Fowley, the band’s manager, of rape, and detailing how people ignored it at the time.
Speaking out like this is not necessarily about seeking justice in the legal sense, says Cunningham, but having a voice – and trying to instigate change.
“Although we are focusing on a certain era in this film, the music industry is still functioning in a very, very similar way,” she says. “I spoke to so many music industry insiders who made it quite clear that nothing has changed. [The documentary] looks at an era I think we all feel very fondly towards, but we need to look at it in a different way. You don’t want to take away from [the music] but you have to recognise that other things were at play.
“All of the women in the film are incredible women in the sense they’re forgiving and they aren’t ‘out to get’ these rock stars. It’s about setting the record straight. For many of them, it’s a personal reckoning. I don’t think it’s a case of wanting to get their own back or tearing anyone down… It’s actually not about the rock stars at all, it’s about these women and it’s about them being heard – so that people don’t just make the assumptions that I think a lot of people make about some of these women.”
Post #MeToo, Cunningham says the world is hopefully finally ready to listen: “Culturally, we’re all thinking in a different way. I think that there hasn’t been an opportunity or a hunger until now to actually hear these stories in a way that challenges our ideas of what the rock scene was.
“So many people, when you tell them you’re making a film like this, they’re like ‘Oh, no, please don’t’ – and then they name their favourite rock star because they don’t want that musician or that music to be ruined for them. This music is so deeply embedded in our lives, I think sometimes people don’t want to [acknowledge] there can be a darker side.”
Cunningham says there were many men who worked behind the scenes who did not want to take part in the documentary. “I think that’s important thing to say,” she says. “That silence, I think, speaks volumes. So although we’re in a time that we’ve been ready for these women to speak and they feel like they have the power to speak, there are lots of men who don’t want to speak out in support of these women for fear of the repercussions in the industry.”
Representatives for Tyler and Rose did not respond to requests to comment or be featured in the documentary by the filmmakers, says Cunningham. Nor did they respond to requests for comment from Sky News.
Cunningham says she likes to think there might come a time when musicians, or any public faces, who behaved in a certain way when it was normalised years ago, want to acknowledge mistakes and help bring about change.
“Wouldn’t you want to speak out and support these women?” she says. “Yes, accusations are being made about you, but maybe speaking out can actually, not redeem you because obviously all of these things have happened, but wouldn’t it be incredible if a rock star came forward and said ‘I did some really bad things and I know I hurt people and I want to campaign for change in support of these women?’ I think that would be incredible.
“But I think silence is just an example of what many people have been doing for years. As I said, there were so many people I approached to be in this film who are prominent men within the music industry, offering them the opportunity to speak out in support of women, about a time that they were part of, and so many people didn’t want to do that. And I think that silence speaks volumes, doesn’t it?”
Look Awaypremieres on Sky Documentaries and NOW on Monday 13 September at 9pm
Kate Nash says selling photos of her bottom on the X-rated site OnlyFans has allowed her to add an extra crew member to her tour staff.
The 37-year-old singer says the fact she is having to subsidise her shows in this way shows that the music industry is “completely broken”.
She announced she was launching her OnlyFans account last week as she began the UK leg of her tour, and has previously said on Instagram that, “touring makes losses not profits”.
Speaking about her new venture to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme she said it was “very funny” and “fun to do,” adding, “My industry is completely broken, I don’t think it’s sustainable, and I think it’s a complete failure, I think it will collapse as well”.
Going on to talk about “people finding solutions to fund their art,” she said: “I think it’s quite empowering, and I’m also creating jobs with my bum now.
“For example, I couldn’t bring a crew member that’s on tour with me in the UK to Europe, but now I can, because of my OnlyFans website.”
She has previously described the career move as a “punk protest,” containing “lots of comedy”.
Speaking to LBC last week, she said: “The cost of touring has gone up. Just like the cost of living crisis, there’s a cost-of-touring crisis – where the cost of travel, accommodation, crew wages, bus rental, all the things that you need to pay for when you go on tour, everything’s gone up.
“But a lot of bands’ and artists’ fees for gigs have not gone up, whereas ticket prices have gone up.”
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Nash also said music was an “exploitative industry,” adding, “I have had lots of experience of being exploited”.
She said it could “learn a lot from the sex industry”.
Beginning her career in 2005, Nash has had one UK top 10 single – 2007’s Foundations – and two UK top 10 albums.
She has just finished a three-week US tour and is now touring the UK before moving on to Europe. Her London gig later this week is sold out.
And Nash isn’t the only one branching out to bring in cash. Lily Allen said earlier this year that she had joined OnlyFans to sell photographs of her feet.
The 39-year-old Smile singer, who moved to the US in 2020, says she has “very strict guidelines” and is charging subscribers $10 (£8) a month to view images of her feet on the platform.
Davina McCall has said her short-term memory is “a bit remiss” as she recovers from brain tumour surgery.
Speaking from her bed, the visibly emotional TV presenterposted a short video updating her Instagram followers on her condition, saying it had been a “mad” time.
She expressed an “enormous heartfelt thank you” to people who had messaged her after she revealed this month she had a benign brain tumour, a colloid cyst, which she described as “very rare”.
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Looking bright, but with a visibly bruised left eye, McCall said: “My short-term memory is a bit remiss.
“But that is something I can work on, so I’m really happy about that. I’m writing everything down, to keep myself feeling safe.”
She added: “It’s been mad, and it’s just really nice to be back home, I’m on the other side.”
In a message posted with the video, she reiterated her thanks for all the support she has received, adding: “Had a great night’s sleep in my own bed. Have a couple of sleeps during the day which keeps my brain clear… Slowly, slowly…”
When she first shared her diagnosis, she said chances of having it were “three in a million” and that she had discovered it several months previously after a company offered her a health scan in return for giving a menopause talk.
The 57-year-old star said support from her fans had “meant the world”.
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She said she was being “brilliantly looked after” by her partner, hairdresser Michael Douglas, and her stepmother, Gabby, who she calls mum.
Becoming tearful, the presenter said: “I’d quickly like to say big up the stepmums. I don’t really say thank you to Gabby enough. She’s been an amazing rock my whole life.”
McCall was estranged from her birth mother, Florence McCall, who died in 2008.
With a catch in her voice, McCall went on: “I’ve got a massive dose of vitamin G – I’m just really grateful. I’ve always been really lucky in my life, but I feel unbelievably grateful right now. So, thanks for everything, all of you.
“I’m on the mend, I’m resting and sleeping loads and I feel really good. I’m just very lucky.”
Stars including presenter Alison Hammond, singer Craig David and radio host Zoe Ball quickly shared their delight at the positive update.
McCall rose to fame presenting on MTV in the mid-1990s, and later on Channel 4’s Streetmate, before becoming a household name as the host of Big Brother from 2000 to 2010.
She’s gone on to present programmes across the networks, the most recent being ITV dating show My Mum, Your Dad.
Last year, McCall was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2023 Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting.
Married twice, McCall has three children, two daughters and a son, with her second husband, presenter Matthew Robertson.
She has lived with Douglas since 2022, and they present a weekly lifestyle podcast together, Making The Cut.
Barbara Taylor Bradford, the bestselling novelist who wrote A Woman Of Substance, has died at the age of 91.
The Leeds-born author, who sold more than 90 million books, died peacefully at her home on Sunday after a short illness and was “surrounded by loved ones to the very end”, a spokeswoman said.
Taylor Bradford, who was often labelled “the grand dame of blockbusters”, hit the big time when A Woman Of Substance was published in 1979, making her an overnight success.
The story sold millions of copies and traced the journey of Emma Harte from life as a servant in rural Yorkshire to heading a business empire.
The rags to riches story was followed by many other successful books with the author’s works being published in more than 40 languages across 90 countries.
Charlie Redmayne, chief executive of publisher HarperCollins, said the author was a “natural storyteller”, adding: “Barbara Taylor Bradford was a truly exceptional writer whose first book, the international bestseller A Woman Of Substance, changed the lives of so many who read it – and still does to this day.”
Taylor Bradford, who was made an OBE in 2007 for services to literature, wrote a total of 40 novels during her career – her most recent was The Wonder Of It All, published last year.
Born in May 1933 as the only child of Winston and Freda Taylor, she worked as a typist for the Yorkshire Evening Post before becoming a reporter and then the paper’s first woman’s editor.
At the age of 20, she moved to London and worked in Fleet Street for Woman’s Own and the London Evening News.
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She met her husband, American film producer Robert Bradford, in 1961 and they married in London on Christmas Eve in 1963 before moving to New York the following year.