Tulisa: I wanted fame, but it almost destroyed me

Lives Less Ordinary

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.6 • 814 Ratings

🗓️ 15 December 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

N-Dubz singer Tulisa Contostavlos survived betrayal and a tabloid sting.

Tulisa was born into a family of musicians in Camden, London, and says music was part of her everyday life. But her childhood was impacted by her mother's severe mental health episodes that would often end up with her being held in psychiatric institutions. After her parents divorced, Tulisa would frequently have to care for her mother by herself.

Tulisa escaped into music, and although she was initially determined to become a solo star, she found huge success with the UK group N-Dubz, formed with a cousin and a friend, when she was in her teens.

At the age of 22 she became the youngest ever judge on the UK TV talent show The X Factor, but her biggest challenge was working out how to survive in the spotlight. At the peak of her fame an ex-boyfriend released an intimate video of her online, without her consent, and Tulisa had to go to court to have it removed from websites. In 2013 she was also the target of an elaborate undercover newspaper sting that led to her facing jail for drug supply, before the trial collapsed and she was cleared. The experience almost derailed her career, and her life.

Tulisa's latest book is called Judgement.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producers: Tommy Dixon and Rebecca Vincent

This interview contains reference to suicide. If you are suffering distress or despair and need support, you could speak to a health professional, or an organisation that offers support. Details of help available in many countries can be found at Befrienders Worldwide. www.befrienders.org

Lives Less Ordinary is a podcast from the BBC World Service that brings you the most incredible true stories from around the world. Each episode a guest shares their most dramatic, moving, personal story. Listen for unbelievable twists, mysteries uncovered, and inspiring journeys - spanning the entire human experience. Step into someone else’s life and expect the unexpected. Got a story to tell? Send an email to [email protected] or message us via WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784 You can read our privacy notice here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5YD3hBqmw26B8WMHt6GkQxG/lives-less-ordinary-privacy-notice

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:07.0	Hello, Greg Jenner here, host of You're Dead to Me, the comedy podcast that takes history seriously and then laughs at it.
0:13.4	This Christmas, forget about socks. We've got the best present of all.
0:17.2	Dead people!
0:18.2	All that sounds like zombies. Sorry, it's not zombies. Let me start again.
0:21.8	In our new family-friendly podcast series, dead funny history, historical figures come back to life
0:26.8	but just long enough to argue with me, tell their life stories and sometimes get on my nerves.
0:31.8	You're dead to me.
0:32.8	Dead funny history.
0:34.1	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:36.1	I think something I came to realise was I was constantly chasing more and more success to
0:42.2	feel a void. It just never ended and really I was just trying to feel this complete
0:48.1	lacking of peace that I had inside and trying to feel the void of my childhood. And the more
0:53.2	success I got and the less the void was filled,
0:56.2	then the more depressed I became.
0:58.0	Because I realised actually it's just material.
1:01.3	It's, you know, money means nothing.
1:02.9	Really what I was seeking was a form of love that I was missing inside.
1:13.9	This is the singer and former X-Factor judge Talisa Contostavlos.
1:19.3	Talisa broke into the world of pop as one third of the British group Ndubs
1:23.5	before becoming a household name via Saturday Night TV in the UK.
1:29.5	At 22, she was wealthy, successful, and living the life she dreamed of as a child.
	...

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