Woman's Hour - Performance artist Marina Abramovic, Universities and sexual misconduct, Nicole Scherzinger, Finances and friendship

Episode Date: October 2, 2023

The world renowned Serbian performance artist Marina Abramovic talks to Emma Barnett about a major exhibition of her work across five decades at the Royal Academy in London. Universities are said to be spending increasingly more of their time investigating complex sexual misconduct cases raised by students. But how equipped and effective are universities at investigating such cases? Professor Steve West, Vice Chancellor of the University of the West of England, Eleanor Laws KC, leading criminal barrister and Geraldine Swanton, a lawyer working with the higher and further education sector discuss.The American performer Nicole Scherzinger came to our attention as the lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls. She has since carved out a successful solo career as well as being a judge on television talent shows including The X Factor. Eight years after she was nominated for an Olivier Award for her portrayal of Grizabella in Cats, Nicole has now returned to the West End stage where she stars as Norma Desmond in a new production of the musical Sunset Boulevard.The cost of living has put a strain on people’s budgets and a recent report from Carnegie UK Trust suggests around a third of people are not even seeing their friends because they can’t afford to. Danielle Bayard Jackson, a female friendship coach and Otegha Uwagba, author of We Need to Talk about Money discuss navigating friendships and money.Author Ysenda Maxtone Graham talks about her new book Jobs for the Girls which gives a snapshot of British women's working lives from 1950s.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Dianne McGregor

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour with me, Anita Rani. On today's programme, the godmother of performance art, Marina Abramovich. The singer, songwriter and TV personality, Nicole Scherzinger, on her West End stage performance in Sunset Boulevard. We discuss how well-equipped universities are to deal with serious sexual misconduct cases raised by students. And can you afford your friends? We talk about money and friendship.

But first, for 55 years, the world-renowned Serbian performance artist Marina Abramovic has been pushing boundaries, whether it's allowing the public to interact with her body in any way they choose, or walking half the length of the Great Wall of China with the sole purpose of breaking up with her lover in the middle. Her pioneering work explores the relationship between the performer and the audience. Her latest exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London presents key moments from her career, while others are re-performed by the next generation of artists. When Emma met Marina, who is now in her late 70s, she asked her about one of her most famous works, The Artist is Present, where she took up residency in New York's Museum of Modern Art and people queued to sit opposite her. They looked into her eyes and she looked into theirs.

I actually trained for this piece one entire year. It's the same like astronauts in NASA go to the space programme. It was the same approach for me. I had to train the entire year in order to sit during the day without never standing up, we never go to the bathroom, never drinking water, I have to train that I take the food in the night and I drink the water in the night and I make sure that I sleep enough. So it took me one year to train that. I really knew that this performance, I want to lift human spirit and I want also to show the transformative power of long-duration work.

People lie in their sleep outside of the museum and we reach 850,000 people which any living artist didn't reach yet. So the need of people to not just look at something but to be part of something is so important because now you still the concept of museums is a medieval concept that you go to the museum you're not allowed to touch anything and you look in the work but if you're part of the experience is something with a young generation of actually viewers needed this is one of other reasons why my public is extremely young people wanted to connect with you or with someone. Some people were crying when they were sitting opposite you.

There was a lot of emotion. What did you learn about humanity or about yourself from sitting across these people? That you can experience this incredible, deep, incredibly moving, painful, unconditional love for any stranger standing in front of you. That kind of love for humanity, I think, for any human being is so important because that's the only way how we can change ourselves

and how we can change the situation we're living in, which is kind of a mess. One of the moments people may remember is when your former partner, romantically and creatively Ulay came to sit across from you and you reached across and you had tears coming down your face and he looked very moved as well did you know that was going to happen no I have no idea that he was sitting in front of me and when that happened it was just him. It was my entire life flashing in a second. And I never break rules. But this was, you know, not the public.

This was a man I loved all these years and split in walking great wall of China. So all the rules didn't matter anymore. And it was very emotional, very, very emotional. What did it feel like to reach across and hold hands? It's just love and understanding and being together in that moment. This moment reached, I don't know, 20 million

viewers. Because why it was so emotional and why the people react on that moment because it's so real. People know when things are fake and people know they're real. You mentioned the Great Wall of China. There's quite a bit of your work together

is in this exhibition. For people who don't know, again, you were going to get married, meeting in the middle of the Great Wall of China. The visas took so long that by the time it came around... Yeah, it took eight years to get permission from China, who was not open at the time. Yes, by the time it came around, you weren't together.

Yeah. So we never gave up anything. We said, okay, now we're going to walk anyway, but say, instead of marrying, saying goodbye. Breaking up in the middle of the Great Wall of China is quite a thing. To walk to enough thousand kilometers. I remember a friend of mine said,

he was American, of course, he said, oh my God, why do you have to walk to enough thousand kilometers? You're just going to make a phone call. But this was all different story with the phone call. It would have been. You also have in this exhibition recreations of some of the things that you have done. And one of the ones that has caught people's imagination, as your work will do with the headlines, has been two naked performers, artists, standing within a doorframe. Again, I need to describe it for radio so that if people want to, they can walk through.

It's quite a close space. What do you want to say about that? That piece called Impoderabilia we made in 1977, and we made it rebuild the door of the museum in Bologna smaller, and we stand there. There was no any other exit. And the idea was really the museum would not exist if the artists don't make the work, and artist life is part of the museum.

So we wanted to really have something very poetical. We want to be door of the work. An artist's life is part of the museum. So we wanted to really have something very poetical. We want to be the door of the museum. And you have to cross the door of the artist. And after three hours, the police came. We were naked and forbidden to be in the piece and so on. But we still have many hundreds of people crossing. In that period, there was so much bad criticism of art. Everybody was against everything.

Everybody was against nudity. Everybody was against that the performance art doesn't exist as art at all. And I spent all my life to put the performance art in mainstream. And the question why is this art, for some time didn't been asked, you know. Again, somehow

became mainstream. Somehow I think I succeeded. Till I come to Britain and now we are having his anonymous letter which I need to read to you because it's fantastic. So you've received an anonymous letter? This has come to you? No, no this anonymous letter is sent to Royal Academy

to everybody and is also sent to me and the letter said this Dear Sir, Madame, I felt that this new exhibition is reaching a new low, and I could not understand why. Why the Academy considered this content as art? Oh, now in the 21st century, now it's my 55 years,

but we still don't know why it's art. Then comes the sentence, even Tracy Amin never got that low as this. We are being swamped by all forms of media, even terrestrial TV, which can only be called soft

porn as the best. And now the best sentence of all. Are you happy to contribute to degradation of the nation? My new t-shirt to degradation of the nation? Wow. My new T-shirt is degradation of the nation immediately. I can't wait.

I mean, I can laugh, but it's... But there's no change. The perception of some of the viewers is this. And I only can count the young generation to actually understand this show. Do you think it's written by a man or a woman i think man i have feeling definitely man if you look the criticism you have a great critic and they really love the show and the one who hate the good thing is nobody's indifferent when you were performing some of these that we're now seeing um rhythm zero in 1974, you have recreated that with footage from it,

a table laid with 72 objects that people were allowed to use in any way. Would that be made today? No. Would it be allowed that people could just come in and do what they wanted to you with anything from a bottle of liquid through to a loaded gun? I was 23 years old. This was the time there was not any kind of restrictions like this today.

And I already proposed in 2008 to Guggenheim Museum to redo this piece called Seven Easy Pieces when I redid historical pieces of different people. And I absolutely been refused by literally the battery of lawyers that would be absolutely not possible in America to be done. But I would never give permission to anybody else. If anybody would do this piece, it's me, because I can have my own body and to see how far I can go.

But I would never put anybody else in danger. But without any permission in Hong Kong, this piece was reproduced anyway, and instead of pistol and bullet the young artist had banana say that again, instead of instead of bullet and pistol on the table, he just had banana, so it was not as high stakes

no, and he sent me photographs, I didn't even know who he was and he never asked for permission but banana, you know who cares, banana is you know, banana is banana is banana is banana you know hatalan made lots of stuff with banana was there a difference between the way the women and the men who came to see you and use those objects treated you yes in in my case in milan in naples when i done the work

women will not do anything to me they will tell men men what to do. And they would only, with handkerchief, take my tears off my eyes and kind of wash the blood. Because there was blood. Yeah. I'd been cut and drink the blood on my neck and still have scar. And, yeah.

But it was interesting situation in Naples because it was Italy. The entire projection on this piece, what the people do to me, is three stereotype projections. Madonna, mother, and the whore, prostitute. Three projections. It was incredible. Everything was done in that direction. Were you scared for your life? When I do this kind of pieces, I go to another state of mind. I was there six hours, and I was there absolutely like an object. I only understood how crazy I'd done when I get to the hotel

and see I have grey hair. Well, you also said you'd like to do it again. If it was ever anyone, it would be you again. You do it now. Yeah, but at the same time, I don't see necessary things to do that I've done already. It's very important for an artist to understand the repetition is not a really great thing. You have to not repeat yourself and you have to be able to surprise yourself.

Marina Abramovich talking to Emma. Now, a study soon to be published by researchers at Oxford University has found that one in four female students at the university has experienced some sort of sexual assault in the preceding year. That's just one example. Universities are said to be spending increasingly more of their time investigating complex sexual misconduct cases. But how equipped are universities in investigating such cases? And should the mostly female students making the complaints put their faith in university hearings rather than going to the police?

And what should the mainly male accused do in terms of a response? Well, Emma spoke to Eleanor Laws Casey, a leading criminal barrister, Geraldine Swanton, a lawyer working with the higher and further education sector, and Professor Steve West, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of the West of England, Bristol. It's a concern for all Vice-Chancellors, including me. We have a general duty of care to make sure that the environments within which they're engaging with are safe and that our students are confident in the spaces that they are working in. What sort of cases in the context I'm talking about

are you seeing? There's a whole raft around bullying, harassment, anti-social behaviour, but there's also sexual misconduct and sexual harassment and domestic violence that sits in all of those. And of course, the line for a university is how we can support students where there are criminal activities to absolutely engage with the criminal justice system, because we're not equipped to be a criminal justice system. We are an environment that is setting rules and expectations around behaviour. If a complainant comes to you, which as I described, was largely going to be your female students, as I understand it, and you and those around you deem it fit for the university to look at the particular case, what is the actual process and how can and how do largely male students who are being accused get treated?

Where we know the students, then we will investigate them and try to gather information and evidence to understand the context within which a claim is being made. So interviewing and engaging with the students making the claims, and then obviously engaging and talking with the student who has been accused. If we believe that this is a serious case of misconduct, then that will go to a highly trained group of individual staff that we use across the university to investigate it fully. And then we will listen to students engaging with the process that allows them to give their statements. Those statements will be checked, provide any evidence that we can gather, and then also go through a process whereby we'll question the students

to understand what's going on. Are they questioned in front of each other? No, they're not. Right, so it's separate hearings? So separate, we do not require the students to, in terms of a face-to-face standoff, which is sometimes how it's described, we're trying to protect both the person who is accusing and the person who has been accused. Do you think, you talked about a highly trained group of staff to investigate, I've just written down those words. Are they good enough? Are they trained enough?

If you are the mother of a son who's been dismissed, for instance, from university, should you have faith in the university having really done its due diligence to the level that should be there in such an important case? Dismissal of a student is a very serious position to take. It's not a decision that's taken lightly. And there are checks and balances in all those cases, including ultimately the decision sits with the vice-chancellor or with a deputy vice-chancellor that's delegated authority. They are independent, of course, from the entire investigation and the first part of the process.

Do you think you're up to the job? Yeah, I think I am up to the job. I think my colleagues are up to the job. We work very closely with our legal counsel. We work very closely with experts in the field. We have a trained set of staff who undertake the investigations from social work backgrounds and from legal backgrounds. And we also have a key case worker now around

sexual harassment. How many students have you dismissed in your time with these sorts of cases? Bear in mind, I've been a vice chancellor for 18 years, and we have 35,000 students at my university. I've probably dismissed for this purpose, around three students. Three. Sometimes that's in parallel with a criminal investigation. Geraldine, what is your view on the role of universities and how they're handling this, not just, of course, where Steve West works? I think it's, first of all, important to understand that what is being investigated in this context is a breach of a university's own domestic rules by, you know, a lay investigator and a lay panel.

It's emphatically not an investigation of an alleged commission of a criminal offence because universities do not have the legal power nor the forensic competence to conduct criminal investigations. So within that context, I think universities are well placed to investigate a report of a breach of their own rules. Do you have any concerns about the systems being set up, the hearings being set up? I have concerns about the increasing formality of these proceedings

and in particular the recent cases which said that students who are accused of sexual misconduct should be legally represented. The introduction of lawyers creates an overly formal, protracted process where lawyers can often conduct themselves in ways more appropriate to Crown Court proceedings, which can sometimes bewilder lay disciplinary panels. I had an experience recently where I was advising a panel and the criminal barrister representing the male responding student submitted 19 pages of questions for the reporting student amounting to highly aggressive cross-examination. Another criminal barrister asked for a five-day and I use the term the barrister used trial which is

impractical for a lay panel in what is essentially an investigation into a breach of domestic rules. And I think that approach will deter students from reporting alleged misconduct. It also increases the costs because panels will want to be legally advised. And it also reinforces inequality, in my view, because students from wealthy backgrounds will be able to afford lawyers, but poorer students will not. Listening to that, Eleanor Laws, Casey, a leading criminal barrister, what do you make of the criticisms there of how this is developing? Well, the reality is I come at this from a point of view of someone who attends these hearings,

and they are shockingly varying in terms of how universities approach them. And I'm also approaching this as a mother of four young adult children, females and a male, one still at university. And I can say this much from what I have seen on the inside, I would not be confident at all if one of my daughters wanted to complain about a sexual misdemeanor to one of these panels. I wouldn't be confident that they would be investigating in a way that would ensure the evidence wasn't contaminated so that if she wanted in the future to take this to the police it wouldn't prejudice that and I also wouldn't be confident that she would be treated with the level of expertise and with all the measures that those who are properly trained in this area know how to deal with. But I also wouldn't be confident of my son going into one of these hearings

in front of a panel who, however much it's said, are highly trained, they are not, and in front of a panel who have a vested interest, because if a vice-chancellor or chancellor is taking a decision, it's usually in the face of, in the past, having been not supportive enough of complainants or victims. And therefore, what is the easier route on a determination of fact when it's one word against the other, and you are facing increasing criticisms, it is to try and get this matter dealt with as quickly as possible, and to expel the mail. And the hearings, I'm afraid my experience

is not that there is any aggressive cross-examination and that yet again misunderstands the role of lawyers in this area because a trained adjudicator whether it be a judge or a district judge in the youth court would know that with a vulnerable witness all that lawyers could and should do is identify the most they can do. No one's suggesting you go in and submit anyone to difficult cross-examination at a university tribunal. But you have to be aware that these are serious sexual allegations. And whilst we're couching this as these are sexual misdemeanours and harassment, I deal with cases where the young male is facing allegations of rape or multiple rapes and that if this were to reach the Crown Court, which it should if it's correct and if it's true,

then it should be properly investigated and indeed aired in front of a jury. And the potential consequences are double figures in prison for these young men. So it is wrong to say, well, a procedure that was set up to deal with cheating should be dealing with serious sexual offences. I'm going to let Steve West come back to some of those because there's specific criticisms of university there. But can I come back just to the one thing that you could reply on because it's your profession, which Geraldine raised. You said, of course, those in your profession wouldn't go

and shouldn't go to a hearing like this and cross-examine in an inappropriate way. But not everybody will behave correctly as a lawyer, dare I say. Whatever Professor West says, it is his obligation as a Chancellor to ensure that there is fairness, natural justice, and there's a recent case that made it quite clear that universities should do that. And if that is the case, then you should have someone who is trained chairing this panel. I can't speak for other lawyers, but it's not my experience in the criminal courts. Cross-examination and challenges

to witnesses are designed to assist the person making a determination. So that's in an ideal world with a good chair and a trained chair. And you're actually saying these situations don't necessarily have any of the right people at quite the right level to do this. To have it both ways, though, your point is, if somebody doesn't want to take it to the police, Eleanor, and they want to take it to the university, do you think that lawyers should be in the room? I think that the first duty upon a university should be to encourage the complainant to go to the police. Secondly, I do think, it's not what I think, these are in the university's general guidance, in a serious sexual offence, every student, not just those that can afford it, that's the scandal.

Every single student, whether they be the complainant or whether they be the accused, should have legal representation. OK, there's a lot there. Professor Steve West, it is not fit for purpose. This should be going to the police if it's reaching a threshold that has just been described. And the highly trained people that you speak of are not trained enough, says a leading criminal barrister. I absolutely agree in terms of encouraging students to go to the police. We will do so and we should do so. And there is a serious question here is why are students and why are females in particular not keen to go to the police? And why does the criminal justice system fail in that respect? There's a

whole raft of questions that flow from that. Going back to Geraldine's point, the university is operating within the terms of reference for a university. In other words, we have our code of conducts and our expectations on students that they sign when they enter the university. And in effect, what we're doing is testing the level of probability that something has gone wrong. And we're then making a judgment. It's the balance of probability. It is not the same level that you would see in the criminal justice system. And I do believe that we do that within the parameters expected of a university. Eleanor, you've just heard the response of what Steve has said. Has any of it

convinced you? Not at all. It's shocking to me that those who are making these decisions haven't actually taken the time and trouble to understand how police and the courts deal with vulnerable witnesses and deal with taking accounts. And secondly, how it is that effective cross-examination, which actually most of the time in these hearings could and should, when I've seen good practice, be conducted by the chair with written questions, usually only about 10 to 15, because that is what happens in the Crown Court. So if you are making determinations of fact, even on the balance of probabilities, what you're saying is you're effectively in the cases of a rape allegation.

You don't use the word rape, but you are effectively saying, I think you're probably someone who's committed a sexual misdemeanor. So you've got to go. Now, you are condemning that young person. Only three people in this particular instance. Were you surprised to hear that figure, Eleanor? Really surprised. So if the universities think that they've got a better way of dealing with this

than the police and the criminal courts, it's pretty shocking that only three students, when one in four females say they've been assaulted. That was at Oxford University, to be fair, but this is a different university. I was giving an example. Well, it's pretty standard that these allegations are being made increasingly. So you think that figure is too low? Well, it is. And you talk about statistics,

can I say, and this should be reassuring. Once a case, a rape case gets to the Crown Court, the conviction rate is 75%. It's got to get there first, though. It's got to get there first though. It's got to get there first but it's 75%. Even the police and criminal justice system has a better record than the university we just heard of. It's high certainly but the problem is getting there and that was even an issue that was apologised for by this government and there has been many attempts to improve that. Professor Steve West, I'm sorry I will bring in Geraldine again in just a moment, but it's not good enough at three, is the point from the argument here. The KC actually is misrepresenting what we have said. Let me just be clear. In 2022-23, we had 30 people come forward in terms of harassment, 23 sexual misconduct and 11

sexual harassment. So these are relatively small numbers and they're investigated. At the extreme end, we will support those students through the criminal justice system. So what we're dealing with are a different sort of student that doesn't want to go through the criminal justice system. And in terms of whether people are the right people to be hearing these, the KC is sort of assuming she understands what we do. It is chaired by a lawyer, someone who is well trained, and it is chaired in a way that allows the investigation to flow without aggressive cross-examination. And if we do have a barrister in, they assume the role of friend of the student. So do you welcome students, if they can, bringing lawyers? No, because the difficulty we have when a situation arises where you have someone coming in assuming that they are operating in a court of law, there is an imbalance, a really significant imbalance.

And I don't think that helps either sets of students. We're simply not set up to run it as a court of law. Geraldine Swanson, that was a point you were making. But having also heard what Eleanor Laws has to say on this, what do you make of that? Well, I just want to challenge one thing Eleanor said. She seems to suggest that universities have chosen to act as some kind of proxy criminal justice system they don't actually have a choice guidance issued by the sector in 2016 said universities had a responsibility to investigate conduct that

would otherwise amount to a criminal offence and I think creating an overly formalised, almost litigious adversarial process doesn't serve either the reporting or the responding student. Whether or not the universities have had a choice is in fact irrelevant. They are now having to do it. And if, for example, they were having to investigate a murder case in some dystopian universe where there were so many murder charges that people weren't going to the police, we would seriously struggle with this. But can I just say overly formal is a persuasive word to try and suggest that lawyers are coming in and turning this into a battleground. If universities read their own guidance, and some hearings are very fair to both parties, and that's what should happen, they should move forward and not stay with the same procedures that they had to deal with cheating and such like. Because the reality is, if you are talking about imbalance, on the one hand, you have a university panel, which we've just heard, it's not my experience, but a highly

trained, legally trained, certainly chair, that have in fact consulted lawyers in terms of their procedures, and in terms of what they say proves a sexual misdemeanor. You have all of that. And then you have a student going in, facing questions about serious criminal offences without any advice. And the reality is, neither the student or the parent know that in fact, what is necessarily going to happen is notes are being taken of exactly what's being said, which could be used in future against him when he could face a sentence of imprisonment of about six years. So there is a formality and a seriousness about this which cannot be avoided. And if you want to listen to the full discussion, you can listen back on Wednesday's programme on BBC Sounds.

Universities UK told us each incident of sexual violence on campus is one too many. Universities take reports of harassment, violence or abuse very seriously and are committed to becoming safer spaces to live, work and study. We've produced a toolkit of best practice and practical steps to tackle sexual misconduct and harassment. And a spokesperson for the Office of Students said it is currently reviewing responses to its consultation on regulating sexual misconduct in universities and colleges in England. They said, we proposed a set of steps that universities and colleges would need to take to address and tackle sexual misconduct and appropriately support students affected by these serious issues.

And remember, you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10am during the week, just subscribe to the daily podcast. It's free via the Woman's Hour website. And you can contact us on anything you want to hear or would like us to cover on social media. It's at BBC Woman's Hour or, of course, via the website. Now, the American performer Nicole Scherzinger came to international attention as the lead singer with one of the most successful girl groups of all time,

the Pussycat Dolls. She has since carved out a successful solo career with two albums, winning Dancing with the Stars, serving as a judge on television talent shows including The X Factor, as a panellist on The Masked Singer and starring in the Disney animated film Moana. Now, eight years after she was nominated for an Olivier Award for her portrayal of Grizabella in Cats,

Nicole has returned to the West End stage, where she stars as the immortal Norma Desmond in a new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's legendary musical Sunset Boulevard. But who is Norma Desmond? She was a very well-known film star back in the day. And then talkies came along. And she kind of got discarded, because she was a silent film star. She didn't have the best speaking voice. And like I said, they discarded her, they threw her away. And so she cut to many, many, many years up in her mansion off of Sunset Boulevard, you know, she's just trying to find a way to make her place again, to find her place to be seen, to be heard,

and to get back to that place where she was adored and loved. What attracted you to the role? Jamie Lloyd is the mastermind behind all of this. I mean, obviously, Andrew Lloyd Webber, it's his music, and I think it's one of his best pieces. But Jamie had this vision, and he came to me with it. And I obviously grew up doing musical theatre, love musical theatre, and I thought there's many roles that I would love to play,

and this is not one of them Jamie why had you did you not know the did you not the story did you not see the had you not I think I kind of knew the film the Gloria Swanson version what it's just like this kind of bewildered kind of out there older star just longing to be seen again longing for fame again again. And I was like, yo, this chick is crazy, Jamie. How old is she? Come on, dude, I still look good under bright light. And he was like, no, no, no, don't pay attention to any of that. He said, strip it all back.

He said, just read the script, read the words, the story on the page and listen to the music. And when I listened to the music, I fell madly in love with her. I felt like I had written those songs myself. But I still had my reservations. What were your reservations? Well, just what they would think. It's like, oh my gosh, like, is my career over?

You know, growing up, I wanted to be Lea Salonga in Miss Saigon, not seeing this. So you think people would think, oh, that's Nicole playing a role that people would have judged you playing that character? I think, to be honest, initially, I thought the role was a lot older because Norma Desmond's character is set to be in the 50s. But really, when Patti LuPone and Glenn Close played it, they were about my age. It's crazy, isn't it? So 40s. But really, when Patti LuPone and Glenn Close played it, they were about my age. It's crazy, isn't it? So 40s. And it's crazy how we've progressed because back then when they played, it's like, that's ancient. But now it's like 40s are the new 30s. You know what I'm saying? You don't.

Look at me. My skin is glowing. No, it really is glowing. It's early. I had a late show last night. How much sympathy did you find that you had for her once you read the... I didn't feel sympathy. I felt empathy. I felt I could relate in so many ways. And I really loved looking at the script and reading the story from my point of view, from my personal experience. I mean, obviously, it's scary when change happens.

It's hard for us to accept change sometimes. It's really hard when sometimes, especially in this industry, if you go out of fashion or if you're discarded or dismissed. And I've definitely felt like that in my life. I've written about it. When have you felt it? You know, when we were at the height of our career with the Pussycat Dolls, you're in it and you're working so hard, you're not able to really enjoy it, be in the moment.

And then you don't realize till after, it's not always going to be like that. Everything has its cycles and new generations and new music and timing comes along, right? Yeah, it's interesting you should say that because when I was thinking about you, because obviously I knew you were coming in today, I've watched you from afar and thought that is someone who really grafts. Yeah, that is someone who's worked hard to get to work on every level, Nicole, the way way you look the way you present just the the thing the programs I've seen you do the way you kind of reinvent yourself you can just see

that you are so focused so it's interesting to think of you leaving the pussycat dolls and I wonder at what point you realized okay I need to now really kind of focus on what I need to do next and how you decide and how you even go from A to B. Well, first of all, I appreciate that because I think nothing great comes in life without very hard work. And I always say, let the work speak for itself. And I come from absolutely nothing. Yeah, by the grace of God and his strength and me having the willpower. It's just it's all about the work. So let your work speak for itself. As far as the Pussycat Dolls go, I never left the Pussycat Dolls.

I think that it was a difficult time for us. There was never sleep or eating or anything in our schedule. It's a very different time now where it's woke and it's all about mental health and caring about people and managing hours and things. Back then, it was very unhealthy how hard we were working. And so it's natural, I think, for five women put under that amount of pressure for so long to just eventually want to go off and do their own thing. And that's what ended up

happening with the dolls. But I was really excited to be able after that to do my music, as I know the other girls wanted to do their own projects. And we all did that. And I have nothing but love for all of my girls and so happy for all of their success, especially here. Yeah, absolutely. When you think back to how you were treated, do you sort of how do you feel about the amount of work and pressure that you were put under, you know, as women in the music industry? My name, Nicole, means victory. I never played the victim card, always the victor card. I came from very tough background, very humble beginnings. So I'm grateful for everything that I was ever put under and anything that happened. And I'm grateful for those times because it prepared me and it made me who I am today. Where does your drive come from? I think God. He is the source in my life. I'm nothing without him. He gives me so much strength. And my family, I have a very strong family. I have a very

big family and we're all grafters. Who's in it? Tell us about the family. Tell us about your beginning. Well, I have my mom and my dad and then i have only one sister but my mother comes from 10 brothers and sisters and her mother comes from 18 and are you still close extremely what a family gathering and that's only one side of the family i come from a big indian family so i know exactly but come on that's a lot exactly does everyone still get together absolutely it's crazy i don't know my grandparents have 98 grandchildren and great-grandchildren i don't know how they remember uh that's only my mom's side of a beautiful family on both sides a big family and i just um i come i'm so grateful to come from a family of

extremely strong women. My tutu, which means grandma in Hawaiian is. Yes, because you were born in Hawaii. Yes, I was born in Hawaii. And they're just badass. They are warriors. We have warrior blood in us, literally. My mother is a selfless woman.

She got pregnant with me when she was 17 years old. She's done everything in her life she could for me. You know, we grew up, like I said, with humble beginnings, no money, and just did whatever it takes, working however many jobs, doesn't sleep, no money, but making it work and doing it out of love. And, yeah, they're just amazing. And it was your mum that nurtured and supported your obvious talent from a very young age. And musical theatre is where you wanted to be, right? Always.

Yeah, I mean, when I was six years old, I heard the voice of God for me, which was Whitney Houston. Yes. And The Greatest Love of All changed my life. I felt really awkward and shy as a child. I felt like I truly didn't fill in from, I think, the day I was born. So when I heard her, everything kind of made sense and aligned. And so I wanted to do music. We didn't have the means to put me in school or take classes or anything. So we had mapped out for me to end up going to a magnet school. And the projects would...

What's a magnet school? A magnet school, It's just the type of school math and science school. But if I went to a magnet middle school, that would ensure me to go to this magnet high school, which was connected to the youth performing arts school. So for a young age, we were just new. Okay, this is the plan. Get me to that youth performing arts school where I can meet my kind, my tribe, hopefully fit in and then be able to get the education that I needed. And so I went to a youth performing arts school. And that's where I studied voice. I was a first soprano. That's why I'm grateful that I had

the upbringing that I did. What's it given you that upbringing? That appreciation. It's made me who I am. It's made me the workhorse who I am. Everyone I meet given you that upbringing? That appreciation it's made me who I am it's made me the workhorse who I am everyone I meet is like you're the hardest worker we've ever met it's just and I have a real a true appreciation everywhere I go even if I stay in a beautiful hotel like for me it's like I'll never take anything a moment for granted and I'm truly grateful because of it. And you can see Nicole in Sunset Boulevard which runs at the Savoy Theatre in London until the 6th of January. Now can you afford your friends? The cost of living has put a strain on people's budgets and a recent report from the Carnegie UK Trust

suggests around a third of people are not even seeing their friends because they can't afford to. So do you earn less than your friends and has that put a strain on your relationship? Do you avoid eating out to avoid splitting the bill when you've only ordered a starter? I spoke to Attega Uagba, author of We Need to Talk About Money, who once ended a friendship because she couldn't afford her, and Danielle Bayard-Jackson is a female friendship coach and founder of the Friend Forward podcast. She told me how changes to a friend's financial status might impact a friendship. You know, I think we like to say these general mantras like, oh, money doesn't matter if we're friends. But I think on a practical level, a lot of our social interactions do happen on a backdrop that requires funds. And that's how

we spend time together. So I think immediately we start to fear that well if I don't have the funds that's less time I see with my friends I start to get left behind so you know money ideally is not important but unfortunately it does play a very real consequences sometimes to to who we see and how often we get to see them. Attega why is it so difficult for us to talk about money in friendships? Is it difficult? Is for us to talk about money in friendships is it difficult is it important to talk about it i think it is important to talk about it and it's increasingly more so given i think the current economic and financial climate but i mean i have every empathy for people who find it difficult to talk about money is kind of seen as like a sort of value a judgment of how valuable somebody is and it's kind of taken as an indicator of your moral value as a person. So I think it stands to reason that people feel

anxious discussing how much money they do or don't have, because unfortunately, we live in a society where that tends to be taken as a metric as your kind of moral worth. And so then sharing those figures and sums with friends or people you don't know that well, tends to be something that I think a lot of people find quite difficult. I know that certainly in the past, definitely in my early, and actually most of my 20s, I'm in my early 30s now, I found it really, really difficult to broach that topic openly with friends. Did you try? I did. I'd say more towards the end. Certainly in my early 20s, I didn't at all. I think I'd kind of grown up with that kind of received wisdom that it's rude to talk to people about money. And it's also a very British thing that you don't kind of ask quite pointed questions about money. And I felt very

embarrassed about a lot of things. Yeah. Danielle, what feelings does it bring up talking about money? And do people's backgrounds influence this? Is culture important? Yeah, it's so interesting. I was just like serving a very informal survey of about 80 Gen Z millennials when we're talking about money. And a couple of the themes that came up in that conversation was a feeling of embarrassment, to Atega's point. Feelings of shame because to her point about feeling, you know, unworthy. And if my friends are supposed to be people who there isn't a power dynamic and now suddenly it feels like there is because we've introduced money issues um feeling anxious because you feel like you're going to get left behind can i keep my friends if they're still going to vacations and i can't tag along um and then also a handful of them also said they fear that they're going to be a burden

if friends have to help cover or if they whatever it is so there are there's a lot of anxiety around feeling like you can't afford your friends. Attega, you actually phased out a friend over money. I did, I did. Tell us about that. Of course, I feel embarrassed about it now, but this was in my early 20s and it was not long after I'd graduated. And at the time I had a job, I think I was temping as a receptionist. So I was being paid and at the time I was also living at home with my parents. So it wasn't as if I was completely, completely, I was, I think I was temping as a receptionist. So I was being paid. And at the

time I was also living at home with my parents. So it wasn't as if I was completely, completely, you know, castrapped, but one of my friends who I'd gone to university with, she'd gotten a job working, you know, as a banker, you know, working in finances, she was absolutely clearing money. And she came from a, you know, a really well off background. so I found that when we socialized she tended to want to go out for brunch or go out for drinks or go out for dinner and that was nothing to her you know it was to spend that kind of money but it wasn't even so much that I didn't have the money but it was that I don't I didn't feel like I had enough money to justify those expenditures and I had to prioritize other things and I was concerned about saving and this and that. And, you know, I wasn't in a job that I

saw as a long-term perspective at the time. So I was quite conscious about money and to my shame. And I would say that I took the coward's way out with this in that I never broached it with her because I just would have been too embarrassed. I don't think it would ever have occurred to me to say hey um do you think we could do something cheaper or free can we hang out you know each other's house like I don't quite want to spend you know my money on xyz so over time over you know a year or so I just kind of phased her out I kind of hung out with her less and less no I didn't go no I didn't go I do that. But I just, I put less effort into the friendship. And I think that was because I felt quite anxious about it and also too embarrassed to kind of say, hey, this is the reason.

And so the friendship just kind of withered. And I have some regrets about that because it wasn't anything she'd done wrong. Loads of messages coming in on this. I'm just going to read some of them out for both of you. Liz has emailed in to say, I stopped socialising with a group of girls there you go to your point a group of girls who all worked for the same company and had big salaries they think nothing of ordering cocktails champagne and pricey food then getting cab cabs home afterwards i started driving to save taxi fares but still found myself being expected to split the bill even when i

didn't drink anything um someone else says i earn more than my best friend and was happy to buy coffee occasionally, but then it became expected. I've never addressed it with her directly, but now I don't offer to pay. Danielle, what do you think about some of those? I guess, you know, does that mean that people just gravitate towards hanging out with people who can only afford to do the same things as them? It's interesting. I think it's the other way around. I think when you're hanging out with people and doing certain things, then in order to maintain that, you probably have the same spending habits. And so a practical truth, I think, might be that we are congregating with people who, we share the same tax bracket and that's how we're able to do the same activities at the same time. What's interesting about some of those messages that you read is,

one, I mean, lack of communication, and then those feelings of resentment on either side start to bubble up. What kinds of stories have you heard from clients about financial fallouts? You know, what's interesting is for me, I mostly hear it around the time when someone's getting married, and then there's the bachelorettes and there are all the things and then the meaning that the bride assigns to you when you say that you can't go and she doesn't know what to you know make of that do you not care are you not invested um so i i hear it often and then we kind of brainstorm some ways where it's like how do you feel like you could still be engaged in this friendship by also still being having some sense of integrity to what you can and cannot do.

Atega, you were at a situation with a friend on holiday. How did that end up? This is a scenario about a decade ago, who a friend of mine, we visited her family's second home in the south of France. And that was all fine. It was really lovely, great trip. But I'd say a year or two later, when we had had a falling out she brought up that trip and that I guess generosity on her part or I would say on her parents part as a reason why I should feel I guess beholden to all things she had done for me it implied that my behavior now was ungrateful the friendship didn't recover for all sorts of reasons. But I do remember thinking that sometimes when people offer generosity towards you, you have to be careful whether or not you accept it and check whether it's done in good faith, because often there are invisible strings attached that you don't realise until much further down the line. Can we give people some practical advice then? Talk to their friends about it. I mean, I don't think it's difficult to think of or come up with less expensive options as a way of socialising.

I mean, I think one of the small silver linings of the pandemic is it showed me that actually on a Saturday morning, you can actually just go for a walk in the park and meet a friend as opposed to going for an expensive brunch. So it isn't hard to come up with other ideas. What is hard is broaching that topic with friends. And I would just advocate, you know, a bit of honesty and just saying, hey, I don't have it like that at the moment. Could we do something instead like X or Y? And it's also an indicator, I think, of the sorts of friends you have. If they are then immediately sympathetic to that, which you would hope they would be, or if they kind of judge you for that or aren't willing to meet you at your level. That's something that for me is kind of deal-breaker with friendships. I was talking to Attega Uagba

and Danielle Bayard-Jackson there and lots of you got in touch to share your opinions on this. Sarah said as a single divorcee my income is half of most of my friends which really affects what I can do. Sadly I've lost a lot of friends because of this and Nick says I have a close group of friends that I've had for many years if we are short of any money one week we say so and then we meet at someone's house and have lovely home-cooked food wearing something comfy

if you feel that you can't afford your friends you have the wrong friends and finally how has life really improved for today's women across the board compared to our mothers and grandmothers Iscender Maxtone-Graham has just published

the final part of her trilogy of oral British history and it's about the working life of women from the 1950s to the 1990s. She spoke to some 200 women about their experiences. The book is called

Jobs for the Girls How We Set Out to Work in the Typewriter Age. I call it Jobs for the Girls because they were girls really were tipped out of their childhood of their schools into the world of adulthood. What on earth happened next? To what extent

had they been given any preparation by their parents, careers advisors, scripture teachers, to have any sense of ambition in the world? And what really happened? And I didn't go in with an agenda. I really wanted to hear what people told me. And I picked up some fascinating anecdotes and details. There's a very memorable quote. One woman, when getting in response to some of these adverts and getting in touch with you, said she recalled her father saying she didn't need to worry about work because she was perfectly bedworthy. Darling, there's no need for you to have a career because you're perfectly bedworthy and will get married. That was lovely.

Bedworthy. I know, not even marriageable. Bedworthy. That's a weird way. I mean, her father probably meant it as a kind of compliment this was mid 1950s. The inference being if you weren't the best looking you needed to get out and have a job. Yes I think it was that but then once you did if you weren't the best looking also it was then quite hard to find a job because I think employers were quite luckist so it was a

it was a tricky world but I think the world was in those days divided more clearly into pretty and plain. What did you take away from some of your conversations? What quotes or learnings have stayed with you? Well, I thought there was a remarkable sort of spirit of lack of self-pity in a way for these women. They were victims in a way, but they sort of just sort of expected it. I think girls' self-esteem had been quite tamped down at schools. You're always told not to blow their own trumpet, keep out of the way, make yourself useful. And one woman I spoke to, Penny Graham, found herself wrapping up the editor of the Daily Express's Christmas presents while he was interviewing her

because that was sort of being useful. And it was just this expectation that you would be in quite loady jobs. But I did also find that I wanted to also sum up the great fun of working days, working worlds of those days, the marvellous sort of tea trolleys and clattering down steps with ice buns for elevenses, as well as the sort of strange, menial jobs that secretaries had to do.

Also found that perhaps in a good environment, there was more porousness between the layers. As a secretary, you could start out and somehow you could float up through the layers. I met one woman who started as secretary and became a lawyer without ever having done a degree because somehow she just found herself working on the job and things like that. That would never happen now I feel no well so some some a few odd benefits perhaps in this nascent world definitely it's very easy to have put a single narrative on the past and I think it was much more nuanced that's why it's good to pull out some of these individual stories what did you find out about how women were educated and different class backgrounds

and what that then meant about working well i did find at the very top as it were that that the high posh end of the social spectrum and at the other end and this piece of paper called the maths o-level was strangely elusive and secondary modern girls were sort of often didn't get a math o-level because they either left at 15 on the moment they the turn they turned 15 if it was october you left left by Christmas and got a job in a factory or shoe shop the next Monday without any qualification. And at the posh end of the social spectrum, you also, there was no sense that you needed a maths O-level. Girls were giving up maths at the age of 12 and found it a bit hard, which made it impossible even to become a nurse, let alone a teacher. Why was maths the what?

Yes, it's strange in a way that maths has always been, that maths and English, I suppose, were the two that were considered absolutely vital, perhaps to show that you could actually think and do a calculation radius. Ever since I was told off by Carol Vorderman on the radio for saying, oh, I wasn't very good at maths, I've never said it again, but I'm going to say it again. I really wasn't. It still brings out like the, I don't know, English side of things. But it's interesting that that was still the barometer. Yes. The idea of those worlds being captured, some of the anecdotes from women working in offices, you know, box files being thrown, bottom pinching. One woman told you her bottom was pinched so hard, is that right, that it left a bruise for two weeks? Yes, there was a bit of that going on.

And there was a lot of the expression, no, thank you, I'm quite happy standing, which we now say when someone offers a seat on the tube. That's what secretaries used to say when their boss asked them to sit on their knee. That's the line. Yes. Do you think there was a kind of, without it necessarily being called as such, and obviously I know this is going on at the same time as another wave of feminism, but do you think there was a kind of sisterhood and a code between some of these women as to how they were navigating this world? Yes, I think they used to grimace each other across the room. While one was having her neck tickled,

they used to sort of go smile and grimace each other. There was a kind of more us and them, us and them feeling, I think, in offices. And yes, at the same time, it was a key place where a lot of women would meet their husband. Well, yes, there's a lovely chapter called Lust and Love in the workplace, making it clear that there is both, there. Well, yes, there's a lovely chapter called Lust and Love in the workplace, making it clear that there is both, there is lust, yes, sort of in a way the bad side, instant sexual

side, but also real long-term, Jane Austen-level romances were formed in offices because you were working with people for years and there could be a lovely, gentle relationship. And I think nowadays, if you have a relationship in an office, you have to declare it to HR straight away. There isn't that freedom for office romances to blossom, perhaps, that there was then. And I had a lovely story about a woman falling in love at initial towel supplies in Leicester, falling in love with Alan. At a towel supply? Yes. Right. Driving her van. She fell in love over the soft, lovely smell of freshly milled towels. Yes. So, you know, it wasn't all bad. There was sort of, in a way, there was more gentleness.

Perhaps not every single ounce of work was squeezed out of you. There was a bit more sitting around in offices, chatting, laughing. Yeah, trips to the pub, lunch hours. Yes, long lunches. There's a line as well, before capitalism stole the lunch hour. Yes, I know. People used to go to a restaurant and have spaghetti bolognese, then have their hair done.

All fitted into the hour while the men went off. Sp spaghetti bolognese then have their hair done. All fitted into the hour while the men went off. Spaghetti bolognese and a blow dry. I mean, that sounds like an absolutely brilliant lunch hour. Can you sign me up for that every single day? I'd be very happy with that. Do you think you got across the whole spectrum?

You know, when you're doing an oral history, you know, there's, do you think you really got to lots of different types of women and backgrounds? I really hope so, because there's a great central stratum, which is the sort of the grammar school girls who are, in a way, the luckiest, because they got in at 11 plus, and then there was just more of an expectation that you would go to university. And I really wanted to hear their stories too. But when they got to university in the 1950s and 60s, and even got got to Oxbridge then they were still expected to apply for jobs as secretaries. Yes I heard one woman scientist

be told that I'm not going to we don't send women on the milk round you we're not going to put you forward for working at ICI so she had to go and do it herself. Is Sender Maxton Graham there talking to Emma? That's it from me don't forget to join Emma on Monday just after 10. Have you ever wondered who you really are? It clicked in my mind suddenly. I was like, why have I never done this? I'm Jenny Kleeman, a writer and journalist. In my new series, The Gift, from BBC Radio 4, I've been uncovering extraordinary truths that emerge when people take at-home DNA tests.

He said, what do you know? You don't even know that your father's black. So I'm like, Jeff, we got him. And he's like, what are you talking about? And I go, we got him. Obviously, it was completely unintended consequence of a gift. Join me as I investigate what happens when genealogy, technology and identity collide. Listen to The Gift on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year,

I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this?

What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.