I found this interview...

[keti]

I found this interview with Mika...maybe some of you have already seen this..but I'm posting it anyway!!!

 

STAR OF WONDER : MIKA TALKS ABOUT HIS MERRY FUTURE

 

 

Mika's future is so bright you've got to wear shades.Then again, with a wardrobe like his - not to mention the eye-opening backstory - you'll need them anyway...

"I am very suspicious of people",Mika begins. He falls silent for a bit, replaying in his head some scene from his past. It is a habit of his.

"I was always told I was ugly. I still think I am ugly.I know I've got an odd face and you can't tell me otherwise.It's the same with what I do.Part of me sees myself as talented,and the other part sees me as strange. Ideas get stuck in your head and nothing changes them.Not even fame."

How screwed up do you have to be to be a pop star these days? At its most base end,the X Factor approach to stardom, you can't get anywhere without the X Combo: the suitably intriguing - yes, we are talking 'kooky' - personality and harrowing backstory.

And that's ironic when it comes to Mika,because he has fabuluos examples of both and still Simon Cowell turned him down (and perhaps just as well,considering how few of Cowell's music-hall acts have achieved a career of any longevity or credibility).

Mika was born in Beirut in 1983,at the height of the Lebanese civil war.His family fled to London via Cyprus and Paris.Diagnosed dyslexic,considered autistic,certified obsessive compulsive (he still buys all his clothes in sets of three), he was bullied so completely he has a nervous breakdown.

His father was taken hostage in Kuwait City by Saddam Hussein for his human shield; he was 'adopted' by a Russian opera star,accepted amid fierce competition by the Royal College of Music (despite not being able to read so much as a semi-quaver of sheet music), only to drop out, pursue a professional singing career and spend years wading through an ocean of rejection slips. And then he used one of those slips to finally make it.

One particular record company executive was so disparaging that Mika wrote down his hurt feelings in a song,Grace Kelly,masking its meaning with upbeat melodies. The song went straight to No 1 in the UK for five weeks on the strenght of downloads alone, and Mika became the biggest-selling new artist of 2007.

A classic ugly duckling becomes swan story? Not quite. "Lots of people don't like me",Mika says. "Lots of people don't like my music. There's not a lot I can do about that."

It would seem the bubbly onstage performer of cute hits such as Lollipop has major ghosts to slay.The story that emerges today is more of a revenge drama - and those don't always turn out too well.

We meet on the set of a photo-shoot where Mika will leap around brightly in an approximation of his stage act. His arrival is preceded by the distinctly tall,dark and glamorous appearance of his two sisters, Yasmine and Paloma. Mika goes nowhere without them.

"They always come with me to pick my clothes and fix me",he explains,following up the rear."A stylist might say you look amazing in anything. Your family will always tell you if you look like a complete idiot".

Mika is also - like his sisters - very tall (he stands at 6ft 4in) and rake-thin in jeans and a vintage black overcoat.Rather than bouncy,he is initially slightly edgy and uncomfortable. It transpires he hasn't eaten for quite some time.

He's nervous about having his photograph taken. He bends his head and upper torso to one side as he speaks,and occasionally stops altogether as if he expects you to start laughing at him.

"I'm totally used to standing in an alien environment and having to deal with it. My first ever gig was in a side room at the Manumission club in Ibiza. I walked on to this tiny stage and it was empty,just a few blank faces staring at me.I'm so used to intimidation I just dealt with it and slowly the room started to fill.That to me was a bigger thrill than getting to No 1."

More than any other pop star since,perhaps,Freddie Mercury,Mika is driven by a sense of difference.He always knew he was something special,and so did his peers - which was bad news for him.

At the age of nine,he attended the Lycee Francais Charles de Gaulle in London.Rather than hang out in jeans and cool,ripped T-shirt like his fellow students, Mika would turn up in bright red trousers and a bow tie.

"Oh,my school days were a nightmare",he says. "It was as if all the kids could smell there was something different about me.I was bullied all the time.It was all psychological and name-calling,the usual weirdo stuff.I was fatter then and they used to say I had child-bearing hips.That always stuck.Those are the scars you can inflict that don't ever show. The teachers were just as bad.They thought I was completely stupid.A lot of kids ended up pretending to be someone they are not.You can learn how to dress like everyone else and learn to talk about computer games and football and the sort of music other kids like. I did attempt to do that a couple of times,but I couldn't stand it.I couldn't change the way I was.It made me even more extreme".

His family was put under pressure to have him diagnosed as autistic and tutored as a special-needs pupil,but his mother resisted.Parental support remains a crucial lifeline,with Mika explaining of his initial inhibition today, "I surround myself with my family and my oldest friends. I don't let new people in".

For someone so painfully honest about his unhappiest experiences,Mika is evasive when it comes to his family.He describes his father's job as "something in finance", and is unwilling to talk about why he was in Kuwait shortly before the first Gulf War,when Saddam Hussein's regime kidnapped hundreds of foreigners and forcibly used them as human shields around factories and military installations.Mika's father was held for seven months before Saddam finally released the hostages under intende international pressure.

"I was terrified about my dad.He was an American in Kuwait.We didn't know what was happening."

That's all Mika will say on the matter - surely one of the formative experiences of his life.He returns to the subjects of school,where the pressure of his dad's internment got too much for Mika.He stopped speaking,reading and writing altogether.

"That was a very bad time",he says. "I can see how weird I was.One day I decided the school needed a Christmas tree and spent hours dragging this huge beast of a tree into school.No one was pleased. I got two weeks' detention because I was 45 minutes late and had made a big mess of leaves and soil all over the building. All the kids just laughed at me".

Mika's mother,decisive as ecer,pulled him out of school and ancouraged him to sing,welcoming the Russian opera singer Alla Ardakov into their lives as a trainer.He'd escaped from the school environment,but a part of his personality,it seems clear,was scarred.

"Even now If I was put back into that environment it would happen all over again.For the first few hours everyone would be happy for me and want to talk about my music.Then there would be the laughing.Then the jokes at my expense.Then the nasty comments."

For all that this borders on camp self-obsession,there are thousands of people who relate directly to the way Mika grew up."Generally,the people who like my music are the less conventional ones - the outsiders,the weirdos",he says. "It's amazing how many of us there are."

Mika's fans arrive at his show dressed up as the characters in his songs: pink and cutesy Lollipop girl, kipper-tied closet gay Billy Brown and Big Girl.

A select few musicians are singled out as uniquely sensitive to thier fans needs,and Mika is one of them.Strangers give him presents. "I get amazing things from sketch books filled with thier drawings to hand-made kimonos for my toys and this incredible embroidered shirt that I wear."

His pursuit of recognition began in his teens when he was obsessively sending out tapes to every record company. A chance meeting with Simon Cowell when he was 16 looked promising. Cowell told him his songs were 'too strange' but thought his voice (Mika has a five-octave range) was good. "I kept calling him for months and months",says Mika.

"He never called me back. He obviously didn't think I was worth it.I haven't seen him since I became successful.He probably doesn't care.That's fine.He just didn't get me".

Mika believes that what happened to him at school helped him avoid the trap of becoming the sort of artist Cowell would like. "I pushed on doing my own thing and just went around to clubs and festivals and gathered a core of people who understood what I was doing.It got bigger and bigger,which is why I got No 1 before anyone in the mainstream had really heard of me."

Success firmly under his belt,Mika remains unwilling to conform to people's expectations of what a pop star should be,say or do.He avoids models and liggers,he doesn't do bling,he rarely appears in magazines and doesn't hang out with other musicians.He won't say whether he's gay or straight (Q:Are you gay or straight? A:Boring!).

"I don't have anything flash", he insists."I live in a flat and I spend most of my time working,drawing and writing songs" (Mika is only able to write lyrics if he draws at the same time).

"I would like to earn money.Making a lot of real money would be cool.I think I could handle being rich.I'd definitely find something interesting to spend the money on."

Like a Ferrari? He looks stunned. "That wouldn't ever occur to me",he says.Fame might prove to be Mika's biggest challenge so far.He's taken on the bullies,proved himself bigger,brighter and more successful than they could ever have imagined.But when Revenge Of The Nerd is the story of your life,what comes next?

[CazGirl]

couldn't find a link, but it's been posted before :/

 

thanks anyway!

[DarkLight]

aww bless Mika is soo sweet I haven't read that interview before so that was great (i've hardly read any interviews he's done to be honest) only a few

 

I can't believe someone so incredibly breathtakingly handsome would think he's ugly

 

he's a stunner in my opinion he really is so sexy

 

I also feel that way though you know, due to been called ugly as a kid no matter how many times people tell me I'm beautiful I refuse to believe it!! I don't think I ever will believe it to be honest!!

 

I totally understand what he means I was always really badly bullied at school so bad so that I was nearly killed at one point & almost hospitalised several times too.

 

some of the bullying was physical & a lot was verbal stuff that has scarred me deeply & will probably stay with me for life I feel I stick out like a sore thumb like i'm the odd one out I always get nervous in new situation & with unfamiliar people I'm quite scarred, quiet & shy painfully shy

 

I was always the one who was left out, picked on & ridiculed for being different.

 

 

I was so terrified of going to school that I'd shake violently like I was having a fit & would throw up several times & I couldn't keep my food down (probably why I was so thin)

 

you know to this day I truly find it hard to trust people & I can count my friends on one hand I just don't let people in easily & when you've been as badly abused as I have (not just at school but after leaving school) you'd understand why

 

my life has been one long hellish nightmare of torture & abuse & tragedy i can hardly believe what I've been through myself to be honest i'm like 'how the heck can someone go through that much hell & not go mental & need to be put in a mental hospital??'

 

I'm surprised I haven't gone loopy as I was such a weakling as a child & I still feel that way now

 

i'm still they shy quiet outsider who sticks out like a sore thumb that never has & never will fit in!!

 

That's why I like Mika so much I can totally identify with him I would LOVE to have him as a friend I think we'd get on so well as it seems he's quite like me in many ways.

 

I'd just love to give him a really big hug & chat with him tell him he's beautiful & an amazing guy

 

it'd be nice to have someone in my life who understands what it's like to be the outsider

[Pam Travers]

"I would like to earn money.Making a lot of real money would be cool.I think I could handle being rich.I'd definitely find something interesting to spend the money on."

 

sylvanian plastic dolls, tintin plastic figurines, ¨schtroumpfs plastic figurines, plastic moto cell phones and plastic watches

 

so of course he said it couldnt cross his mind when the man asked about a ferrari, its metal:mf_rosetinted:

 

people dont know him

[tauruslady]

an odd face?!?! Mika, what are you talking about?!?!

 

doesn't he know that he is absolutely gorgeous and unique!?

 

tut tut!

[Louiza]

I've read that before. It's such a great article!

[xx_emily_x]

love this article

[RAK1]

This is the interview from the Live magazine in the Sunday Mail at Christmas, which has already been posted.

[rabdash]

This is the interview from the Live magazine in the Sunday Mail at Christmas, which has already been posted.

I was going to say that - I have the article on my wall - you can find the article on the Daily Mail website, I'll get a link in a minute and post....

[rabdash]

couldn't find a link, but it's been posted before :/

 

thanks anyway!

 

link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/live/live.html?in_article_id=504038&in_page_id=1889

[Marilyn Mastin]

aww bless Mika is soo sweet I haven't read that interview before so that was great (i've hardly read any interviews he's done to be honest) only a few

 

I can't believe someone so incredibly breathtakingly handsome would think he's ugly

 

he's a stunner in my opinion he really is so sexy

 

I also feel that way though you know, due to been called ugly as a kid no matter how many times people tell me I'm beautiful I refuse to believe it!! I don't think I ever will believe it to be honest!!

 

I totally understand what he means I was always really badly bullied at school so bad so that I was nearly killed at one point & almost hospitalised several times too.

 

some of the bullying was physical & a lot was verbal stuff that has scarred me deeply & will probably stay with me for life I feel I stick out like a sore thumb like i'm the odd one out I always get nervous in new situation & with unfamiliar people I'm quite scarred, quiet & shy painfully shy

 

I was always the one who was left out, picked on & ridiculed for being different.

 

 

I was so terrified of going to school that I'd shake violently like I was having a fit & would throw up several times & I couldn't keep my food down (probably why I was so thin)

 

you know to this day I truly find it hard to trust people & I can count my friends on one hand I just don't let people in easily & when you've been as badly abused as I have (not just at school but after leaving school) you'd understand why

 

my life has been one long hellish nightmare of torture & abuse & tragedy i can hardly believe what I've been through myself to be honest i'm like 'how the heck can someone go through that much hell & not go mental & need to be put in a mental hospital??'

 

I'm surprised I haven't gone loopy as I was such a weakling as a child & I still feel that way now

 

i'm still they shy quiet outsider who sticks out like a sore thumb that never has & never will fit in!!

 

That's why I like Mika so much I can totally identify with him I would LOVE to have him as a friend I think we'd get on so well as it seems he's quite like me in many ways.

 

I'd just love to give him a really big hug & chat with him tell him he's beautiful & an amazing guy

 

it'd be nice to have someone in my life who understands what it's like to be the outsider

I was the same. Always picked on and left out of things at school. At the age of 3 months old I was put on medication because it was thought, I was epileptic, and I actually wasn't. The medication doped me, so I couldn't run and play like the other kids. I was bullied, and most of the teachers didn't understand.

I loved Mika, after hearing him sing, and, at first, had no idea of the problems he'd faced and the rejection he'd known, but having learned about it, I not only sympathise with him, I also understand.

I also understand how he feels about his looks, even though I don't agree with him about them, but I too felt ugly, because I was plain, and I couldn't grow my hair (the medication had messed it up) I also didn't attract boyfriends the way other more attractive girls did.

But I am in a good place now. I did get married and have been with Alan for over 26 years. I also feel better about my appearance. I may not have looked good as a youngster, but I look great for a woman of 53

I now also have the right medication and diagnosis for my condition, so even though I still get confused, I feel much better.

If Mika reads this, I hope he'll realise that a lot of people understand what he's been through, and it is possible to overcome any setback of difficulty. We are all proud of Mika for what he has achieved, and I know we all believe in him. He just needs to believe in himself, and to know that we see him as a unique, talented, good-hearted, and gorgeous-looking, human being

[DarkLight]

I was the same. Always picked on and left out of things at school. At the age of 3 months old I was put on medication because it was thought, I was epileptic, and I actually wasn't. The medication doped me, so I couldn't run and play like the other kids. I was bullied, and most of the teachers didn't understand.

I loved Mika, after hearing him sing, and, at first, had no idea of the problems he'd faced and the rejection he'd known, but having learned about it, I not only sympathise with him, I also understand.

I also understand how he feels about his looks, even though I don't agree with him about them, but I too felt ugly, because I was plain, and I couldn't grow my hair (the medication had messed it up) I also didn't attract boyfriends the way other more attractive girls did.

But I am in a good place now. I did get married and have been with Alan for over 26 years. I also feel better about my appearance. I may not have looked good as a youngster, but I look great for a woman of 53

I now also have the right medication and diagnosis for my condition, so even though I still get confused, I feel much better.

If Mika reads this, I hope he'll realise that a lot of people understand what he's been through, and it is possible to overcome any setback of difficulty. We are all proud of Mika for what he has achieved, and I know we all believe in him. He just needs to believe in himself, and to know that we see him as a unique, talented, good-hearted, and gorgeous-looking, human being

 

absolutely we all believe in him & adore him he's a lovely unique beautiful human being & should be proud of himself I sure am he has done ever so well for himself. I adore him the way he is & woudn't want him to change one bit!!

 

he's gorgeous & adorable the way he is there's not one thing I'd change about him, it's his uniqueness that makes me love him & makes me realise I'm not the only one out there like that.

 

sorry to hear you had a bad time too marilyn, congratulations on being married for 26 years that's great. I hope I too one day will find someone to marry (the man I initially wanted sadly turned out to be gay which broke my heart, but at least he likes me which is better than him hating me right! I've got to look at it that way not in the negative way although it's very hard sometimes)

[theobsessedone]

For some reason the fact that Mika can only write songs when he's drawing at the same time is really cute to me!! <33

 

Gosh POOR MIKA. This interview made me want him to write a memoir or something!!

[keti]

I'd like to comment the interview I've been posted to you, and yes, thank you guys for nice answers. I was deeply touched when I read it because it's one of the rare articles in which Mika is treated as a sensitive, sensible and highly intellegent human being what he is, indeed. Not only a pop icon or sex symbol to capture one's imagination but as someone who needs much more than that. The way he's expressing his emotions and fears of possible rejection made me cry. So I think somewhere deep in his heart he still feels loneliness and sorrow. That's why I admire him and respect his strong will to persuade people that he's not only a singer or performer but also a true artist. He celebrates love and beaty in his songs and lyrics and that's what makes him so different from all others.

[*Mikalicious*]

Thank you for posting, it's a very interesting article.

I feel really sorry for Mika when I read about when he was bullied.

[laura*]

Thank you! I had missed this interview. It really proves how special Mika is!

I'm getting too fond of this extraordinary young man.

It must be hard for him to tell those horrible experiences in an interview. He must have thought about them a lot.

Just tell me who are the ones who bullied him...

and I'll

[Jennifer B]

Never read this one before! Thanks for posting. My hubby has a similar face shape and always complains. But obviously a lot of people do think Mika is attractive! Just as I thought my hubby was cute as well.

 

I only hope Mika will eventually let new people in his life. There are a lot of good people out in the world!