“It got worse. We filmed the stage performances the day before the show was broadcast, and in my naivety I thought they’d surely cut out the segment where that video clip was shown up on the screen behind the stage. I was still dumb enough to believe it really was some sort of technical problem. During the hours that followed, I realised it was just one huge set-up, with me as the punchline. The producers said they couldn’t do anything about removing the video clip and my entire performance of the song I’d just sung would go out, including what happened at the end. While I was pleading with them to do something, anything, to edit it out, they were already in the editing suite splicing it together to make things look even worse.”
“How could they be worse?”
“Well, don’t forget they’d already convinced Megan to meet with Ronnie earlier that same day and talk to him about how she felt. With cameras rolling and tabloid photographers hiding in the shadows, the two of them had decided they quite liked each other after all and had ended up kissing again.”
“Oh, Ryan,” Grace said, utterly dismayed.
“The production team added that footage into the show, too. In the end, it all looked like some cheap reality show rather than a music competition, and I was the clueless idiot caught in the eye of the storm. Megan was caught up too, and although I defended her a moment ago because she was young and as easily manipulated as I was, she could have come to me after pairing off with Ronnie for a second time and told me she wasinterested in someone else. If she’d done that, I never would’ve dedicated the song to her up on stage. The crew might still have shown that video clip to create controversy and drama, but at least I wouldn’t have just put my heart on my sleeve only to be left looking like a complete fool, all while being filmed at the same time, just to give everyone watching at home a few cheap laughs.”
Even after all these years, the embarrassment on Ryan’s face was plain to see. Grace understood what it must have cost him to recount this awful story, and she squeezed his hand, wanting him to know she was listening, that she understood, and that she ached for the boy he’d been when all this had happened to him.
“So, in the end, they broadcast the show with all that perfectly crafted drama held back until the end of the programme for maximum effect,” Ryan said. “The tabloids had their juicy piece of flesh to feast on, and quickly turned us all into front-page fodder. The show got a huge ratings boost, just as they’d wanted. And I had no choice but to quit and go home.”
“Did the media chase after you?”
“For a few days. I just hid in my bedroom at my parents’ house and refused to leave. My mum and dad had never wanted me to go on the show in the first place, but I was an adult and they couldn’t stop me and I thought I knew what I was doing. They never said, ‘I told you so,’ and I was always grateful to them for that. If it hadn’t been for my parents and my sister, and my grandparents, all there to support me and help me keep my chin up, I don’t know what might have happened to me.”
A heavy silence settled on them, and Grace saw from Ryan’s face that he still contemplated how differently things might have turned out for him during that dark time if he hadn’t been able to rely on his family.
“What happened to the others once you left?” Grace said.
“Megan and Ronnie stayed in the show. They were both desperate for the big music career and desperate for the fame, and I think because they wanted the fame just as much as they wanted the music career, they soon made their peace with what had happened. Ronnie was never much bothered by the drama, actually. He was the bad boy of the show and up for that sort of thing. Megan might not have wanted the drama or the embarrassment of how things unfolded that day, but she realised she’d have to get on board with it and try to make it work.”
“What happened after that?”
“Megan and her girl band got voted off the show the following week once the tabloids turned on her and portrayed her as the tramp who’d played two lads off against each other for her own selfish gain. That wasn’t exactly what had happened, but no one was about to let the truth get in the way of a ratings opportunity. Megan had some minor notoriety for a few months and got sucked into the celebrity scene for a while after that, but she never had a music career. I found out a few years later that she returned to college and eventually got a job working in an office somewhere. It’s a shame, because she had a decent voice and could’ve had a decent career. Maybe she could’ve overcome the bad publicity and the way her name got dragged through the mud, but maybe not. In the end, I suppose she decided it wasn’t a price worth paying.”
He trailed off and shrugged.
“What about the other lads in the band?” Grace asked.
“They continued in the show as a trio. Ronnie took centre stage and loved it. The band didn’t win the competition, but Ronnie got a recording contract out of it and put out an album and a few singles. The songs weren’t particularly good, and Ronnie played the bad boy image just a little too hard for the record company’s liking. They eventually dropped him, citingpoor sales. He did the celebrity circuit for a year or two, but soon vanished from the scene, just like everyone else on that show.”
“That seems like an awful waste.”
“Like I said, it was a terrible show and it failed to produce any big pop records or big musical acts. I think that’s why the production crew were so keen to play that stunt on Megan and I. The show was already tanking in the ratings, they didn’t know how to develop the musicians they’d put into the finals because they didn’t have the budget for it, and so they turned to shock value and drama in an effort to stop the ship from sinking.”
“You must have wished you’d never got involved with any of it,” Grace said.
Ryan nodded. “I was lucky that I had family and friends to support me, but it’s impossible not to be humiliated like that on television and just brush it off as if it never happened. I stepped away from music for a few years, because I’d lost all passion for it. But the thing I loved most, which was writing songs, that never went away, not completely. One day, I picked up the guitar and started playing, and it felt like coming home.”
Grace smiled at his words and the tenderness in his voice. “You were born to do this,” she said, gesturing to the guitar now propped up against the coffee table. “I’m glad you found your way back to it.”
“It helped that the show was terrible and only lasted one season before it got axed. All the stuff that happened ended up being little more than a flash in the pan. That’s not how it felt to me back then, but it’s how it was for the vast majority of other people who watched the show or heard about what happened. Time passed and news stories moved on and soon the whole thing was ancient history. Once I realised that almost no one remembered anything about a stupid tabloid story involving a bunch of teenagers on a crappy music competition show, Istarted to move on from it all. That’s when I began writing songs again.”
He smiled, his expression soft as he recounted the final piece of the story.
“It took a while to find the courage to put myself out there and connect with people in the industry who could help me become a proper songwriter, but once I did, things happened quickly in my career. Most serious people in the business only shrugged when they found out I’d once been a contestant on a music show, and almost none of them cared at all about the controversy and drama I’d ended up embroiled in, especially as none of it was my fault. All they cared about was that I knew how to write songs and that those songs turned out to be moneymakers for the musicians who recorded them.”
“Are you happy doing what you do now? Or do you ever wish you’d become a singer, and wish you could have gone down that route if it hadn’t been for that stupid show?”
Ryan shook his head, his response instant. “Not for one second. I love the life I have now and I love my work. The career of a recording artist is brutal, whether those artists are hugely successful or struggling at the bottom of the food chain or somewhere in between. That’s not the life I would’ve wanted. As a songwriter, I get to be part of an industry I love, writing songs and creating music and working behind the scenes, while enjoying an ordinary life free from the publicity and all the bells and whistles involved.”
An amused smile lifted his mouth as he added, “If I were being really optimistic, I’d say that what happened to me on that dumb music show actually turned out for the best, because it pushed me in a direction I might never have gone in otherwise, a direction that led me to where I am now.”
“That’s a healthy way of looking at it.”
“Every cloud has a silver lining. Having said that, I would’ve preferred that none of that stuff had ever happened in the first place. That was an unhappy time in my life, and…”
