Paloma Faith has opened up about an alleged incident on The Voice that left her “shaking”, involving a “sexist” exchange with another coach that was cut from the final broadcast.
The revelation came in Faith’s new memoir MILF, which recounts her experiences of motherhood, fame and misogyny throughout her career.
The alleged incident took place in 2016 and coincided with Faith taking hormones in preparation for having IVF.
“It was essentially the hormones of 14 periods at once,” she wrote. “Towards the end of the two-week jab fest, my stomach was protruding, I was emotional and sensitive, and constantly feeling like everyone hated me.”
Describing The Voice as “glossy show” where “there’s a lot of emphasis on looking good, as well as being witty and quick”, she said that she pretended to fall asleep as a joke while one of the other coaches – who she didn’t name – was speaking about a contestant.
“It was an ill-timed and misread joke, intended to be a bit of theatre, but he took offence and came back with a cutting quip, saying I had ‘probably got PMT’ and was ‘rude’,” she recalled. “The PMT remark was obviously cut from the edit.”
Faith reckoned that “on a normal day”, she would have felt like she could have “expressed my concern at the inbuilt sexism of him assuming all my negative actions could be attributed to my female condition, and dismissing me as just another woman with PMT”.
“But on this day, pumped full of hormones, I felt both shame at experiencing that in front of a studio audience, and like I couldn’t retaliate due to my desire to save face,” she said.
“I ran off stage, to the toilets, and blacked out. I don’t actually have a recollection of any of it until I came to on the floor with me then PA’s hands cupping me face… Apparently I was shouting something like, ‘My fucking father’ over and over again… and sort of convulsing.”
She added that fellow coach will.i.am told her she looked like she was on the verge of a panic attack and offered to cover for her so she could leave the stage. She and the coach in question were later offered “conflict resolution” by the production team before they continued filming.
“I was shaking, my nerves were shot, but the show needed to be made,” she wrote. “And that’s showbusiness!”
Faith previously shared that MILF is “a kind of homage to all the women out there with children and without and saying ‘Let’s just think about this ridiculously patriarchal system that we have which gives us all these unfair expectations of us as women and we’re saying no’.”
She continued: “Come with me on a journey which is anecdotal and also thought provoking and opening a conversation in which we as women can support each other, embrace each other and be empowered by one another whilst hopefully educating some men on the way… To all the MILFs out there, I salute you.”
In other news, Faith is set to perform at this year’s Camp Bestival Shropshire. She will also be performing at Dreamland in August as part of the 2024 Margate Summer Sessions.
