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drama queens, she had never acted professionally and yet here she was, starting at the top, wowing a West End audience and the critics, too. The following June she won the Glamour magazine award for Best Theatre Actress. Kelly’s vivacious personality was perfect for musical theatre, and London took her to its heart. The prodigal daughter – she was born just down the road, after all – was hired by Radio 1 to host a Sunday-night show, The Surgery , where she answered young people’s questions. It was an inspired choice, because she had packed a lot into her twenty-three years and her natural rebelliousness resonated with her generation, although from my point of view she’d probably seen too much for her own good. While I took pride in her success, I hated being so far away from her. However much we talked on the phone, I missed our cuddles, and it’s hard to pick up those clues that things aren’t going well if you’re several thousand miles away.
    My real worry was drugs. It was common knowledge that, over the years, Kelly had struggled with addiction. She had checked into rehab back in 2004 and then again in 2005, but I remained optimistic that the dark days were behind us. But without being able to look her in the eyes, it was hard to be sure. Still, you never know. She was young, and like all young people she was finding herself, which necessarily involves being influenced by your friends and peer group – the people you hang out with. And I knew who she was hanging out with – the press made sure of that – and I knew that there were at least some among them who did drugs. While I understand that experimentation is all part of growing up, I was worried. I was never an addict – I have never even smoked a cigarette – but her father did, and he was.
    Yet like all young people, she wanted to be accepted into this new community, the beautiful people who lived on those renowned London hills. And she was both vulnerable and gullible. Once you are ‘famous’, friendships are difficult. It takes years of experience to be able to work out just why people are paying you attention. Do they really like you for who you are? Or is there something else at work? When I first moved to LA at around the same age as Kelly, I had power and influence through my father, a huge name in the music industry both in the States and in England. Sharon Arden could get VIP passes to see Led Zeppelin or the Stones with one phone call. Being on the inside track brought me instant friends. But it came at a cost, both emotional and financial. And I feared for Kelly that the same thing would happen to her. It did, and I could only watch from afar as a succession of nonentities came, took and left.
    Kelly was barely out of her teens and still finding herself as a young woman. Yet every mistake she made was public. Every outfit, every change in hair colour was critiqued, its implications endlessly pored over in the tabloid press. Of course Kelly liked to party. She was young, single, so why not? And she worked hard. She wasn’t a wannabe, she was a was-a-be. On the outside she was confident and outspoken, happy-go-lucky and with the world at her feet. She has the best smile in the world, and lights up a room the moment she walks in. But she wears her heart on her sleeve. And like every girl of her age she just wanted to fit in, to be accepted.
    The group she hung out with – her social circle – were generally much older than she was; some of them already had kids. All they really had in common was their ‘fame’. Fortunately she had two really good friends in London who she’d kept in touch with since we’d lived in Welders. She and Sammy started preschool together on the same day, aged three, and have been friends ever since. And then there is Fleur Newman. Her father, Colin, and mother, Mette, could well be said to be our best friends, Ozzy’s and mine. They are certainly our oldest friends. Colin worked for my father, and we have