Sinitta talks Me Too, Simon Cowell and ‘discovering she was black’ for the first time
The American-born singer recalls her British boarding school days, finding fame and the years of abuse she went through
Hair care I was born in Seattle, Washington, in the United States, in 1968. My earliest memory is of being a toddler on my mother’s hip as she made porridge. When I smell cinnamon now, it takes me back to that place.
My mother (Miquel Brown) had me young and my grandmother had died in childbirth. I didn’t have grandparents. I have a sister who was adopted by another auntie or uncle in the family, but I stayed with my mother. She was a performer in the 70s musical Hair and I travelled with her around America. I’d be in her dressing room during shows, trying on make-up and costumes and listening to the performance. I assumed that I’d grow up and be in shows, too: it was in my blood.
Old school After the world tour of Hair, from 1973 we stayed in London, where my mother was offered lots of shows. It wasn’t as exciting as travelling to a different city every week. I had read Enid Blyton’s “Malory Towers” books and I asked to go to boarding school. It was strict and rigid and they disapproved of me in many ways. I was the only black child at an all-white, all-female English boarding school, in East Sussex.
It was like discovering I was black for the first time. It was teachers I had the most problems with, including racism. I experienced things like being washed excessively; I think they thought the colour would come off. Going from the liberal, open-minded, modern world I grew up in to a strict, old-fashioned establishment was a huge adjustment.
[Simon Cowell] was going to do the song So Macho (1985) with an already established artist but I told him it had to be me. I knew it was going to be a hit
Early stages While I was still at school, The Wiz, the black musical version of The Wizard of Oz, came to London and they were looking for a black female to play Dorothy. I knew all the lyrics by heart and I got the role. My mother let me do it; I was a needy and shy child, but she realised I was also tenacious and ambitious.