Fired!
I closed my eyes for the ride home.
It started out a joke. I was just messing around in my room
and decided to sing a silly song and tape myself. I was home alone for the
summer with nothing to do. After awhile, the Internet bored me, so I decided to
put my new camera to use. After a few takes, I had what I decided was a pretty
cute two minute tune. I strummed my old six-string, a hand me down guitar from
Dad as I sang and hammed it up for the camera:
Fashionista…not just your feast-a
I won’t bow at your feet
Or believe your deceit
I won’t fall for you boy
Won’t be your girl toy
You betta watch yourself
Check your attitude
Watch your mouth
Mind your manners
Say what is true
(two 8 beat instrumentals here—me, fiercely strumming my old
six-string, no guitar pick for me, no sirree)
Fashionista..not just your feast-a
I’m not like the others
I got my own druthers
Don’t need you to be my brotha
I won’t bow at your feet
Or believe your deceit
I won’t fall for you boy
Won’t be your girl toy
(16 beats, trying to finish strong and still look fashionable and cute)
I walk by in my boho chic
You watch me, smiling and sweet
I got mad fashion
I got true abandoned, uninhibited passion
I gotta try and fly high
Want no reasons to cry
Wings untethered, not held back
Everything peaceful, not out of whack
I won’t bow at your feet
Or believe your deceit
I won’t fall for you, boy
Won’t be your girl toy
Fashionista….Fashionista….Fashionista!
And I finish big and save a copy
In a quirky mood, I posted it toYoutube and my Facebook
page. A few clicks later, the rest is history…ground-breaking Internet history.
What happened next can only be explained if you know who Justin Beiber is—and
how could you not? The unknown golden boy who became an Internet sensation then
a prodigy discovered by rapper JayG, Beiber’s
meteoric rise to fame is hard to fathom, yet it happened. Then it happened
again—to me!
Two days later, my little joke song had over 80 million
hits. Kids were posting it to their own facebook pages. A ringtone app was born
for the Iphone and people were paying $2.99 for each download. Ladies lunching
at the Wilfred Springs Golf and Tennis Club heard “Fashionista” when someone’s
phone rang. The dining room echoed with my voice. The golf director hummed it under his breath
as he teed off. Everywhere I turned, I
heard myself.
My dad, knowing a miracle from heaven when he saw one, moved
quickly to contact t.v. stations and radio stations in our area. I ran from
interview to interview, stopping long enough to strum my song and sing my tune.
Soon, he was fielding calls from Los Angeles , Chicago , Orlando , and New York
I was thirteen and bored.
I guess my parents always knew I was destined for stardom
and named me for it. I was born to the Black family of Wilfred
Springs , Georgia Reine
River
So, Jett Black soon became the most sought after interview
since Kimye got engaged. I was the new “it” girl—all of Hollywood
I was poked and prodded, waxed and curled, tanned and
manicured, spit-polished and ready for my close-up. My teeth were bleached, my
hair was teased, my face was masqued and peeled, it was decided I didn’t have
enough hair for fashion or t.v., so extensions were added to puff me up, my clothes were chosen by a team of real
fashionistas—a guy named Dougie who wore more guy-liner than Adam Levine of
Maroon 5 fame and carried a huge bag
full of make-up and moisterizers, spritzers of this and that in his murse—his
man-purse, a girl with spiky hair named Angel who had more tattoos than biker
diva Kat Von D, and a 40ish peroxide
blonde cougar named Jill whose radar for younger men started pinging at each
and every photo shoot. I was a Disney
Cinderella and they were my chattering and oft times my malicious magpies.
“Sweetie, look this way…no, up…”
Dougie was attaching yet a few more false eyelashes. I felt
like my eyelids were way too heavy for my eyes.
“Ouch!” I practically jumped out of the make-up chair. “You got glue in my eye, I think” I
complained, dabbing at it with a Kleenex.
“Oh, darling…so sorry, darling! Nearly done here,” Dougie
assured a bleary eyed me.
“Voila! Divine!” he said, turning my salon chair to face the
mirror. The face that stared back to me wasn’t my own. I looked older, maybe in
my 20s or 30s; I didn’t look like the angelic girl who sang “Fashionista”
anymore. I looked more like a slutty Claire Danes.
Disney Studios took notice of me right away and offered me a
screen test. “Smoky” was a new sit-com about a girl who gets Internet stardom
and her “reality” t.v. show—sounds familiar, right? Instead of Jett Black, my
character’s name was Smoky Blue---not much of a stretch, really. So the story
was based on my life, but not on my life. My acting ability wasn’t the draw,
obviously. They just wanted a perky girl who could wear fashion, sing on-key,
and get kids to buy products, and scream on cue. Lucky fans got seats at live
shows and the truly lucky got to meet me and come back stage.
Smoky Blue took off like a rocket and social media exploded. I knew was on my way when my Twitter-verse was rocked by no other than Justin Bieber himself.
His tweet was: @justinbieber: hey jett welcome to the good life. teen stardom rocks, like me! now U! don't let it get to you ;) #great2B_us
How ironic his tweet is now.
Smoky Blue took off like a rocket and social media exploded. I knew was on my way when my Twitter-verse was rocked by no other than Justin Bieber himself.
His tweet was: @justinbieber: hey jett welcome to the good life. teen stardom rocks, like me! now U! don't let it get to you ;) #great2B_us
How ironic his tweet is now.
At first, I loved all the attention. I loved playing dress
up and having beauty treatments and spa days. I wished every day that my mom
was there to share all of this with me. She had been gone about a year when I
sang “Fashionista.” I really missed her.
When my life became one long spa treatment and costume
fittings took the better part of a day, the reality set in. This was not fun—it
was hard work. Even singing for the camera began to feel fake.
The channel originally wanted me to change my name to Smoky
Blue—not just on-screen but legally—through the court system—to be more “true”
to the character. Besides, they reasoned, the name Jett Black was too harsh for
kiddie t.v., too bold, too strange sounding, too biker babe, too punk rock.
What they didn’t realize is that name was given to me by my now dead mother.
“You want her to change her name?” my dad asked
incredulously, obviously upset by this turn of events. He was already mad that
they had put low-lights in my hair without asking permission. I wished again
that Mom was still alive. She would understand low-lights and up-dos, extensions
and hair color.
“We think Jett Black is too grown up for the show,” the
producer named Stan said. He watched my father and looked impatiently at his
Rolex, admiring its diamond and 18 carot setting. He had somewhere to go and he
wanted us to know he was a very busy man—a very busy rich man.
“Smoky Blue?” my dad practically shouted, the vein in his
forehead looking dangerously close to exploding. “You think Smoky Blue is a
wholesome name? It sounds like a hooker’s name.”
“Now, Jeff, er…Mr. Black, you have to understand….we chose Smoky because
the character is born in the Smoky Mountains and Blue is a much nicer color for
television than black,” Stan drummed his fingers on his pristine desk. Blue was
a “nicer” color?
“Absolutely not! We change her name and the show folds? Then
what? She’s stuck being Smokey the Bear for the rest of her life!?” This was
not going well at all.
My dad ended up losing the Battle of the Names. Jett I was
at birth but Smoky I remained on
television and in the public.
So for five years, I was the angelic waif of Disney t.v., the
darling of the minute, the songbird I was paid to be, and I warbled my tunes—the
tunes they told me to sing. I sang about the mountains and my mountain
home—mostly fiction, of course. I sang of home town values and family time. I
sang of horses and unicorns, teddy bears and lip gloss, dreams and
school—although I didn’t have a clue about normal school anymore. I was tutored
on-set between takes and any other spare moments they could find.
I was becoming Smoky Blue. Kids came to the show to see her,
not Jett Black. I was a commodity, not a person. The hottest eye shadow color
that season was Smoky Blue—the average age of the consumer—eleven years old!
“Toddlers and Tiaras” producers asked Smoky Blue to sing a song at their pageant,
but Dad put his foot down.
“Jett, you’re not singing on that show!”
“Why, Dad? You know I love that show,” I wanted to meet some
of the contestants. Keally Lee was my favorite toddler. She was only five but
walked like Miss America
“I won’t have you associated with such an exploitation of
young girls,” was his only comment.
How ironic. I was a minor on the set yet I worked longer
hours than most business people. Talk about exploitation!
Smoky Blue was a new jean made for Old Navy and an instant
runaway best seller. Teens were wearing Smoky Blue hoodies that cost $68.00—for
a hoodie! A Smoky Blue doll was marketed by American Girl just in time for
Christmas that year.
K-Mart wanted to market my character’s name on a line of
shoes, but Dad didn’t like the fact that the shoes were made by children in
sweat factories in India.
My own songs were never published, the studio wanted control
over my “image” and were worried my own songwriting was too mature, too
worldly, too grown up. I wanted to sing about love and heartbreak, about the world
and people, about freedom and peace. I wanted to change the world with my
songs. I wanted people to know about child labor and sweat factories and how
stupid it is to pay $68.00 for a hoodie.
When my contract was up for renewal on my birthday, Dad kept
calling Stan the Man who suddenly wouldn’t return his phone calls.
And that’s when I knew I would lose the show and my job. And
that’s what just happened.
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