Tulisa: “I Sleep with a Knife!” | We’re Talking: Shocking Stories

0:00Welcome to We're Talking. Now, here we are never short of a shocking story. And let me tell you, this week we're focusing on one of the wildest stories I've ever heard from the one and only Talisa. So let's get into it.

0:28At this point, you leave X Factor. All right. Fed up with show business? No. So I was actually done myself, but I was also done because I thought I can afford to be done because I have a movie role lined up. Okay. To me, this sting could be a film by itself. this is one of the most bizarre scary stories i've i've ever heard so and i didn't even realize that coming off of x factor you're thinking i have a movie role so i'm okay so see you later guys this is mr with my mental health i'm out i've got this opportunity and what was the opportunity that you thought you had i thought i had um i think it was a two million or three million pound movie role going to Hollywood, breaking worldwide.

1:27How did you find out about... With Leonardo DiCaprio, who's like my childhood crush. Really? Yeah. All right, so, now, so Lisa, I'm about to ask you a million questions on this. So at what point are you pitched on this presumed movie? I was approached by a big, well-known media movie media company that everyone knows. Okay. So not by the company direct, but they used, I don't know how they did this, if someone was paid off, but they used their Twitter account to contact me. So this is the reason from the beginning I thought this is 100 % legit. Interesting. Because the message came from, we're talking one of the biggest, probably the biggest.

2:12Absolutely. And they slid into the DMs. To the DMs. And I will say, I mean, I've never had that level slide in, but this is how I got my first book deal. You know, someone just literally slid in from the publisher. So a lot of business is conducted this way. And you see that the millions and millions of followers and the verified tick. And it is to this day. I don't know how they did it through that account. And what did the message say? I don't know exactly because it was all done through management. But it's basically we're interested in Talisa for a movie role. We want to introduce you to these producers.

2:47Okay. So you hear about this. You're like, absolutely. Yeah. 100 % I loved acting I loved it like from doing dub plate drama in the early days like I spoke about with Bea um I just loved it was something I really wanted to get into I think at times I preferred the thought of being an actress than doing what I did because I thought there'd be less drama with it you just get to go play someone that you're not and then go back to reality you don't have to do the hoo-ha-ha and the showbiz side of things yeah and I would imagine you've wanted or you've thought about becoming an actress for a for yeah i loved acting as much as i loved singing when i was a kid okay so it was always they kind of the two kind of coincided yeah all right so they've said okay we've got this role for you with leonardo dicaprio yeah and winning you've already won i've already won and where do they want you to go at this point So the first meeting that we had, they flew me to Las Vegas, first class, limousines, pulling up, met by assistants.

3:54That was the first time I met Nish, so that's not her real name, but a woman that played the role of Nish. You're thinking these are producers? Yeah, movie producers. Bollywood slash Hollywood. This is going to be the first Bollywood slash Hollywood, like, real commercial role. and it's going to be almost like a bit of a love story about this ghetto girl and the culture clashes and stuff like that. And I really needed to be this ghetto girl in the role to get the role because I wasn't experienced enough as an actress for something so big and so high-end. The only reason I was good for this role is because I was the girl in the role, which is why it should be easy for me.

4:39and I would have Nish pulling me aside when the recorders, where the recorders aren't so we'd be sat around a dinner table and then Nish would be like, let's go to the toilet and then she'd go, listen, they're really wavering at the moment they want to go for like a big Hollywood actress they're not believing that you are the girl in this role I really need you to go out there and up the ante that you are this ghetto girl in the role. And you hear me in the space of a minute go from saying, oh, I used to get into fights and smoke a bit of weed, to now I have loads of friends with guns and I used to shot crack and I'm literally like crazy stuff.

5:26Because Nish is encouraging you and she's playing on this fact that she knows you want this role. Yeah. And you need to really act the part. Yes. They showed scripts. They showed contracts. It was really intricate. They had fake accountants, fake lawyers. So all of this. All of this is an act. It's one big. It's one big act. But now, I mean, I can admit anyone going through this, if they were you, they're thinking, okay, this is legit. Yeah. This is a role. I'm going to be paid millions of pounds. Yeah. And as well, I didn't know it existed, like the entrapment. I didn't think like that was, I know I've heard of entrapment that like police go out and find, you know, criminals and then entrap them into doing stuff to catch them.

6:15But this scenario, why would anyone want to entrap me into drugs when I've never touched cocaine in my life? So of course it wouldn't even cross my mind. At what point do they then try to connect you with cocaine? Kind of instant that they were making it evident that they were into drugs. So from the first meeting, I remember what I said, and this was my hint hint, like I'm not here for it. They were like, I can't remember what I said. I said something like, yeah, like the L 'Oreal girl without the drugs. like my way of saying not my jazz and they continue to push they continue to push they discovered that i didn't do drugs through my friends we have the recordings i think it was played in court said no no no no no don't mention drugs to tea do not bring any drugs around her she's like really anti-drugs because i had suffered with people that i cared about like suffering with addictions.

7:21I think initially maybe it would have been to try and catch me doing drugs and when they realised I didn't take drugs then they were like, we're going to have to flip this into something else. I see, I see. So what was the something else? Concern in the selling of class A drugs which of course if I was this ghetto girl in the role that I was pretending to be of course I'd have a telephone number somewhere and if I didn't have this telephone number after the eighth time that they'd asked me how was I going to pretend that I was the girl in the role? Gotcha. So they get a phone number from you. Yeah.

7:57And that phone number leads to them being able to purchase cocaine. And they didn't just purchase cocaine. They purchased 800 pounds worth. 800 pounds of cocaine. Yeah. Through a number that you've given. Yeah. So it's not, okay, so it's through a number that you've given. And then once that happens, when do you begin to find out this is not a movie role, this is actually a sting? I find out the day they drop the story. I was just sat in my house and my manager came in and he was like, oh my God, oh my God, it's not real. None of it was real. And then he starts explaining to me what's happened.

8:39and my mind is just... You can imagine what my mind's doing. It's like... It is very, very difficult to comprehend. Not in a million years did I think that was... I didn't even think that was legal to do that to people. I didn't know enough about the law at the time, surely now. But even then, I mean, you had gone through some incredibly challenging times throughout your life. But this is unique. Yeah. Because this was a fabrication, right, and a very intricate fabrication. I mean, we're talking about from the beginning, from the tweet to the flight, first class flight, to the limos, to the hotels, to the meetings, multiple meetings.

9:31The account of meetings, the lawyers, the contracts. This is so... I mean, it's a film. What was the article that came out? What was... Do you remember? What was it? Talitha's Cocaine Shame.

9:52How do you feel the moment that you look at that article? You see the headline. I'm fucked. you see if you watch the documentary the price of fame and i'm in a bathroom crying into a camera that's immediately after i found out because i was like i'm gonna fucking expose these motherfuckers for everything that they've done i want to document everything i called my old cameraman i was like get your ass around here now you're gonna live in this house with me and i'm gonna bring this out and I want to show everyone what these criminals are doing to me. Let me ask you something. When was the last time you really thought about how you love?

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11:17Come solo, bring a partner, bring your crew everyone's welcome. But seats are limited, and they will go. Tickets are on sale right now at livenation.co.uk. I can't wait to see you there. Who is the they that did this to you, and why do you believe they specifically targeted you? I have multiple theories. Okay. Some of which I couldn't disclose. Okay. Because they're that deep. Wow. Is there a theory that you can disclose? I think they wanted to take me out I think there were a lot of bigwigs in the industry in general That wanted to take me out I was way too strong for a 22 year old female from Camden Town This sting cost them over like 300 grand to do in total The amount of time that spent, the actors, the everything The flying around, this and that Someone paid for it to happen and and on top of that they tried to set me up again I was out in Dubai and there were two princesses Dubai princesses that were huge Talisa fans okay and they wanted to party with me and they were getting their assistant to make contacts with my manager to get me so they could spend the night with me and party with me and we began recording the conversations and we hear the assistant of these princesses saying can we bring to lisa here so we can trap so we can he actually accidentally says so we can trap her and then corrects himself um and then we knew a dubai royal out there so we went to the dubai royal to find out if these princesses were who they say they were and they were not so this is how we discovered but i was like what are you planning to do we're in the middle of dubai right you know i don't do drugs are you gonna slip something in my bag and call a dubai police officer and i'm in dubai and i'm gonna get the death sentence at the time and that's when i went these people are trying to kill me i literally began to fear for my life i'm talking when i'm driving and when something like that starts to happen i'm driving in my car and i'm looking around my car checking for like tickers underneath it or i'm gonna get someone's gonna smash into me and run me off the road it felt like some will smith enemy in the state shit that's what i thought i was living in i was like what the hell is going on and i'm 22 yeah

14:05off the back of this you're in court something that you just said that really hit me is that You said that your bag packed. Yeah, the pack, that bloody black bag with my stuff in it every day, ready to go to. You were prepared to go to prison. I mean, yeah, as much as someone can be. I thought it's very possible. In my mind, I was like, right, well, I'm effed. I'm not going to have a career afterwards. So how the heck can I make enough money to live off for the rest of my life? So instantly I was researching and books are the only thing that are legal to still earn from in prison. You can still release a book and earn money from that book.

14:49This is what I read at the time. So I began writing a book. That was my preparation for going to prison because I was thinking finances. I need money when I get out and I need money when I'm in there. So I began writing a book about everything I was experiencing. but in novel form so like first person novel form what i keep coming back to um and i'm not trying to get you to say something that you're not prepared to say but it seems as if hearing this there is someone or some group that wanted to take you down by any means necessary so So does that entity, does that person, are they still, you believe, a threat to you?

15:38I live like I'm still under threat to this day. I mean, I've slept with a knife under my bed pretty much feels like most of my life now. I don't know what it is I'm preparing for, some kind of assassination attempt? I know it sounds crazy. I know it sounds crazy. quite honestly hearing that story yeah it's not it's not because my friends don't think i'm crazy at all because they lived it with me and they're like hell no are you crazy you better get them gates up you better get them to train security dogs in i saw yes i saw you with with the the trained dogs and now it's all making sense this is this is why is to protect yourself yeah like I practice archery at home I have a bow and arrow like it's got to that level but I also don't spend my life rattling around my house like you know waiting for someone to cut through the door but I am prepared if I hear a bump in the night I'm ready to go you're ready to go yeah it's that energy I don't live thinking about it but as soon as I hear a duk I'm up then you're ready you're ready yeah yeah the case how was the case resolved so while i was in the car with um one of my mood's drivers who unbeknownst me was recording me i had a conversation about someone very close to me and dear and i said they're stuck on the drugs i need to get them away from the drugs off the drugs get these bloody dealers away from my house um and had this very anti-drugs conversation where i was getting very upset and emotional about the situation and initially the driver went to the police and said i'd had this conversation um and then at the last minute from this is what i've been told i could be wrong about this but a son passed away and that it was possibly drug related and in a turnaround of conscience he stepped forward to my lawyers and handed them the email that Mahmood had sent him telling him to change his statement and if he hadn't done that I would be in jail because I had no defense they'd secured that with the niche situation what would the sentence have been four years was the four years yeah yeah you would have been in jail yeah yeah

18:25rarely am i speechless yeah me neither and i was speechless too it's the only thing that ever made me speechless in my life i thought i'd seen it all and when that happened it was like i have never ever heard a story like this i was in touch with the head of scotland yard like or not the head to Scotland Yard for murder I think that's what she covered so she covered like murder at Scotland Yard um and I couldn't tell you the amount of calls I was giving her every day to say this is happening these people are following me they're not paparazzi and they're driving up behind me in the car it's like I feel like someone is after me or someone's trying to intimidate me or giving me the feeling like they're going to try and kill me and then for once just once it never happened before my manager was out and I just decided to walk my dog I thought it's just around the block and I walked my dog around the block and I came back and I just moved house because I was so terrified of them following me knowing where I am and the press knowing where I live and I came back and one of the moving boxes in my house had been moved to the front of my door and the door was left wide open as if to say this is how easy it is to get you yeah

19:41so and that continued for a long time until it stopped it just really felt like it didn't really end for a long long time for me it's only i only feel like maybe in the past six years is when And I was kind of left to feel like, ah, I've been... Yeah, you can breathe. Left alone a little bit now. And that's when I really started to heal and tried to pick up the pieces of my shattered life. Yeah. Continually go back to is who and why. What have you done to shake up someone's world? Or what do I know? Or what do you know? You won't know. Yeah. Fair. I don't want any more drama. No, no. I was going to say, don't even say anything more.

20:31Leave me alone. I ain't trying to mess with anybody. Let's end the interview right here. Just let me rest in my little country home. I don't want any of this. I'm good. No, no. I would imagine you don't want any. But after that case, is this when Talisa disappears? Yes and no. Okay. I had like a kind of immediate hold my head up high. I went back to X Factor as a guest judge. Okay. I was like, I'm going to drop a single. That kind of burst moment of, you know, here I am. Fuck you, you can't get me down. But after that, then the reality kind of kicks in that it's really just not that easy. Things are not the same anymore.

21:18The brands won't touch me in the same way. I'm not thought about in the same way. this is a whole new era of my life now that I'm going to have to adapt to. Yeah. I'm sure you'll agree that the story you just heard could be a thriller. And if you'd like to hear more of Talisa's incredible story, you could check out the full episode on the We Need to Talk page, and that's wherever you watch your podcast. See you next week.

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