With all due respect, Tommy Mottola was just the bitter pill I needed to swallow at a pivotal period in my life. And there is a lot of respect due to him. He was a visionary music executive who fearlessly and ferociously dragged his visions into reality. He believed in me, ruthlessly.
“You’re the most talented person I’ve ever met,” he would say to me. “You can be as big as Michael Jackson.”
I heard music in the way he said that name: Michael. Jackson. Here was a man who had played a large role in advancing the careers of some of the biggest names in the industry, and he saw me sharing the same rare air as the most influential artist and entertainer in modern history. Respect.
And it wasn’t a sales pitch or a cheap come-on. It was real. We didn’t play when it came to the work. My career as an artist was the most important thing to me—it was the only thing. It validated my very existence, and Tommy understood the power of my commitment. I was serious and ambitious. He knew my vocals were unique and strong, but he was most impressed with how I created songs: the structure of my melodies, the music. I became his new star just as he was beginning a huge position at a new label, so he had the influence to clear the runway for my ascension into the sky. He was willing to move heaven and earth to make me successful. I recognized and respected that power. Despite having been around some of the biggest names in the music industry, Tommy told me I was the most talented person he had ever met. He was for real, and I really believed him.
Soon after we met, Tommy started making romantic overtures. At first, they were a bit awkward and adolescent, like sending me expensive Gund teddy bears. Yet his persistent gestures and constant attention also gave me a sense of safety. Tommy had a brazen confidence I had never seen up close. He impressed me, and I saw him as a truly empowered person, which I found very attractive. Underneath the shine, however, I had some inkling that there was a darker energy that came with him—a price to pay for his protection. But at nineteen, I was willing to pay it. For me, Tommy was a potent combination of father figure, Svengali, business partner, confidant, and companion. There was never really a strong sexual or physical attraction there, but at the time, I needed safety and stability—a sense of home—more than I needed a boyfriend. Tommy understood that, and he provided. I gave him my work and my trust. I gave him my conviction and the combination to my moral code.
The relationship was intense and all-encompassing—after all, we already worked together, which was how we spent most of our time. When we weren’t working, we were dining at high-end steakhouses or infamous Italian restaurants or attending industry events together. I was spending less and less time at my Chelsea apartment and began spending most nights with him.
Soon, I felt pressure from Tommy to give up my place, and against my better instincts, I gave in. Little did I know, that relinquishment would mark the beginning of a slow and steady march into captivity. Little did I know, giving in to Tommy’s demands would gradually swallow my privacy and begin to erase my identity.
On weekends, we drove up to Tommy’s farmhouse in Hillsdale, New York, which I eventually “affectionately” came to call “Hillsjail.” On the night I got my first publishing advance, for a million dollars (a million dollars buys a lot of H&H bagels!) Tommy drove us up the Taconic Parkway and pulled up before a gorgeous piece of land. He stopped the car and told me to get out. I looked at the sprawling expanse, shivering in the autumn breeze—it really was stunning.
“Let’s build a house here!” Tommy proclaimed. I knew what this translated to: this is where we are building our house. I had no idea the scope of what I was getting myself into.
Now, this was no Hillsjail. It was impressive and majestic: fifty acres of fertile green land adjacent to a nature preserve in Bedford, New York. It was sandwiched between properties belonging to Ralph Lauren and a very prominent billionaire, an area guaranteed to be secure. But, as I would soon discover, the concept of security was about to turn on me.
I hadn’t ever wanted to leave the city, but that’s what we were doing. Outside of the recording studio, I wondered, when would I ever be back in my beloved Manhattan? Certainly, building a new house would be a monumental undertaking, but it did have a strong appeal to me, creatively and emotionally.
After a childhood of being uprooted and plopped into all kinds of precarious living arrangements, I finally had the chance to build my own, from the foundation. I got excited. I got into it.
I insisted on being fully involved in all aspects of the design, and I also insisted on paying half of all the costs. I wanted it to be my house. I had fresh memories of witnessing my mother go through the humiliation of a boyfriend shouting, “Get out of my house!” I told myself that no man would ever do that to me. Ever.
Much of what I learned from my mother and older sister was what I wasn’t going to do when I grew up. I had very little guidance in what to do as a woman, though I’d been forced into adult situations when I was still quite young. Tommy was twenty-one years older than me; he could have been my father. He was also the head of my label. There was no wise woman around me
