Rebecca Ferguson still has the same softly spoken, sweet nature she had when she gingerly walked onto the X Factor audition stage in 2010. The Liverpudlian legal secretary and single mother was 23 when she unveiled her unique crushed-velvet vocals to the world – though was too nervous to lift her eyes from the floor during much of her performance of Sam Cooke’s A Change Is Gonna Come. Even now, sitting in a Buckinghamshire hotel nursing a hot chocolate, she concludes the answer to every single question with a tentative “yeah”.
But the high-powered men who mistook this shyness for weakness have long since realised the error of their ways. Ferguson is – not unlike her voice and lyrics – equal parts vulnerability and defiance. She is about to release her fifth album, Heaven, Part II. It comes 12 years to the day since launching the first instalment, her double-platinum debut, which received a rapturous five-star review from the Telegraph.
Ferguson is also an accomplished songwriter, who insisted on co-authoring every track on her first record. Nothing in this article will match the succinct perfection of a verse in her new song, Found My Voice: “In this game of Simon Says / Anyone can be removed for even drawing breath / And the quiet was normalised / And it’s haunted me for years / I need to speak my mind / ‘Cause I won’t stay / I won’t stay silent / I won’t stay silent now…”
She is referencing contestants being forced into contracts without independent legal advice and threats that they would be kicked off shows if they did not sign up to specific managers and accountants. She has said she was chased into a toilet in an attempt to persuade her to sign one contract and, she tells me, there is one to which she is “locked in for life”.
There is no £1 million recording deal for guessing which Simon she is talking about in the song. But her criticisms of the way she has been treated since coming second (ahead of One Direction) on Simon Cowell’s talent show are levelled at many people she vaguely refers to as “industry executives”.
Since taking to Twitter in 2021 to call out those who “blackmailed me, bullied me, robbed me”, she has become an influential campaigner against misogyny and coercion in the music industry. She gave evidence to Parliament, met then-Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden, teamed up with Zelda Perkins, who broke her non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to expose Harvey Weinstein, and has been a driving force behind the formation of the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority.
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***The Telegraph’s Etan Smallman interviews Rebecca Ferguson:***
Rebecca Ferguson still has the same softly spoken, sweet nature she had when she gingerly walked onto the X Factor audition stage in 2010. The Liverpudlian legal secretary and single mother was 23 when she unveiled her unique crushed-velvet vocals to the world – though was too nervous to lift her eyes from the floor during much of her performance of Sam Cooke’s A Change Is Gonna Come. Even now, sitting in a Buckinghamshire hotel nursing a hot chocolate, she concludes the answer to every single question with a tentative “yeah”.
But the high-powered men who mistook this shyness for weakness have long since realised the error of their ways. Ferguson is – not unlike her voice and lyrics – equal parts vulnerability and defiance. She is about to release her fifth album, Heaven, Part II. It comes 12 years to the day since launching the first instalment, her double-platinum debut, which received a rapturous five-star review from the Telegraph.
Ferguson is also an accomplished songwriter, who insisted on co-authoring every track on her first record. Nothing in this article will match the succinct perfection of a verse in her new song, Found My Voice: “In this game of Simon Says / Anyone can be removed for even drawing breath / And the quiet was normalised / And it’s haunted me for years / I need to speak my mind / ‘Cause I won’t stay / I won’t stay silent / I won’t stay silent now…”
She is referencing contestants being forced into contracts without independent legal advice and threats that they would be kicked off shows if they did not sign up to specific managers and accountants. She has said she was chased into a toilet in an attempt to persuade her to sign one contract and, she tells me, there is one to which she is “locked in for life”.
There is no £1 million recording deal for guessing which Simon she is talking about in the song. But her criticisms of the way she has been treated since coming second (ahead of One Direction) on Simon Cowell’s talent show are levelled at many people she vaguely refers to as “industry executives”.
Since taking to Twitter in 2021 to call out those who “blackmailed me, bullied me, robbed me”, she has become an influential campaigner against misogyny and coercion in the music industry. She gave evidence to Parliament, met then-Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden, teamed up with Zelda Perkins, who broke her non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to expose Harvey Weinstein, and has been a driving force behind the formation of the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority.
**Read more: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/interviews/rebecca-ferguson-interview-x-factor-simon-cowell/**
The title made me think of the other Rebecca Ferguson, and I was mildly confused.