Twenty years ago, an 80s icon told me, “You could be beautiful.” I didn’t believe him then. But I do now.

Another day, another flight. I only landed from Bangkok on Sunday night, and here I am again, halfway through security, wondering why I’m incapable of sitting still for more than forty-eight hours. It’s only a short hop today, a quick trip to get my hair done (my hair is, shall we say, complicated). Besides, there’s the bonus of lunch with my mother at Hawksmoor. That part is becoming a lovely little tradition.

Flying always loosens the mind, and a memory surfaced this morning that I haven’t thought about in years, one of those mad little collisions that only make sense in hindsight.

It was around 2002, back in the post–Stevie Mark I days, when I was trying to be anything but myself. I had killed off the real me by then, grown fat, miserable, and convinced football was my new identity. One night, after a Liverpool versus West Ham match, I boarded the very last train out of Euston. First class, of course, because I still liked to pretend I was somebody.

There was only one other person in the carriage, an 80s pop legend, impossible to miss, his face surgically sculpted into something between marble and latex. He looked up, clocked me, and with a small flick of his hand, invited me over. So I went.

We talked for hours, like old conspirators who had just recognised each other through the fog. He was heading home to Liverpool, staying at the Adelphi, where else would a Scouse pop royal rest his head? And then the night took its turn. The Colombian marching powder appeared, and before I had time to think, I found myself saying, “Go on then.” It had been years since the first incarnation of me had touched that stuff, but the moment was too surreal to resist.

Later, back at the Adelphi, I poured my heart out to him, everything. My secret life, Stevie, the truth I had buried. At that point, only a few people on earth knew who I really was and had been, and now this plastic-surgery-enhanced pop star joined that tiny list.

We talked for hours and hours. At one point, he stared at me for a long time and finally said, “You need to get back into it. You could be beautiful, with the right surgery, help with your hair, you really could.”

I ignored him for twenty years. In the end, he was right.

This particular person is dead now. I could name him, but I’m not going to. You all know who it is. The worst thing is, I used to see him on TV sometimes, he got quite famous again several years after that on a reality show and I had to pretend to find him revolting and weird, as others did, when I actually really liked him. He was a good guy.

I’ve had one hell of a secret life. It’d make your head spin round (like a...???)!!!!!!!!