Allure (October 2005)
Grand Slam
Gwen Stefani has a platinum album, a red-hot clothing line, and a solo tour. Never has world domination seemed so cute.
Gwen Stefani’s home sits atop a steep driveway in Los Angeles, like a butter cream-frosted castle complete with a turret, bougainvillea vines, bathing pools, and fountains. When I ring the bell to announce my presence, her Minnie Mouse voice drifts down from a balcony above: “Hold on! I’m not ready yet!” A moment later Stefani – pop superstar, body beautiful, famous wife of Gavin Rossdale – bounds down her wrought iron staircase, her bare feet slapping the terracotta tile. Her bottle blond hair is pinned on one side like a Vargas pinup girl. Her famous abs, just visible between her white tank top and jeans, are tan and taut. Stefani’s fully made-up – brow pencil, foundation, blush – and in her pocket are not one but two golden-hued lip glosses, which she sweeps across her lips as frequently as some hipsters light cigarettes.
After wiggling her way into the vaulted-ceiling living room and apologizing profusely for the mess (a glance around the black-and-white-tiled kitchen and the dining room with its Moorish chairs and dripping candles reveals no disarray to speak of), Stefani fills a tumbler of pink Vitamin-water for each of us and plops on a white overstuffed couch, then jumps off again to see if she can find a missing pearl earring on the floor. “I’m such a dick when it comes to keeping track of stuff,” she says, her butt in the air and her head somewhere underneath the side table. She lost the engagement ring Rossdale gave her four years ago after putting it on a nightstand before bed, hearing it drop to the floor, and never seeing it again. As Stefani wriggles under the furniture, it’s impossible not to notice that at home she doesn’t glide the way she does on the red carpet, nor does she stomp the way she does on stage. Here she wiggles. She plops.
Stefani, who has been having her moment for the past decade as the lead singer of the unstoppable band No Doubt, is having another heyday with her multi-platinum solo record Love, Angel, Music, Baby. At the time of this interview, she has been nominated for six MTV Video Music Awards, her singles “Cool,” “Hollaback Girl,” “Rich Girl,” and “What You Waiting For?” are getting constant airplay, and she’s about to go on her first solo tour. As if that weren’t enough, this month Stefani, who already owns her own clothing company, is launching a new product line with Sanrio, the billion-dollar Japanese empire behind Hello Kitty. She’s so excited about Harajuku Lovers, her T-shirts, cell-phone charms, stickers, and other ephemera featuring four characters based on her team of Japanese back-up dancers, that she spontaneously does a little bump-and-grind, shaking her hips and sing-songing, “I am. So happy! Mmmm-hmmmm.” Stefani proudly shows me the website – the tagline is “A fatal attraction to cuteness” – which features an animated town where one can shop and navigate a faux Harajuku shopping district (inspired by the real one in Tokyo). Stefani will be peddling everything from stationery to $250 Hewlett Packard cameras, and no part of the cow will go unused: the products refer back to her music, using lyrics from songs and visual clues from her videos. She’ll be taking the Harajuku Lovers products on tour so fans can buy more than the usual concert T-shirt. “everyone should be doing something creative like this,” Stefani says, clicking various cutesy icons on her site. “I get so inspired by things – like the way Harajuku girls dress in Japan. Everything I am is one big stolen good. Once you filter it through yourself, it becomes yours.”
It seems as if the torch for “new inspiring female icon” was passed from Madonna to Stefani when the singer achieved instant fame with the anti-sexism anthem “Just a Girl” in 1995. Her image – one part riot grrrl in bondage pants, one part post-apocalyptic Marilyn Monroe – is something she has cultivated, even though Stefani refuses to call herself a feminist. “Before I could say whether or not I am one,” she says, “I’d need an exact definition of what the term ‘feminist’ means.” Her provocative look, she says, simply evolved over the years – from her high school days when she liked to make her own clothes (”My room was the danger zone; if you went in there you were definitely going to get pins in your feet”) to touring with No Doubt, when the punk buckles and ska plaids came into full effect. Finally exposed to stylists on video shoots and encouraged by her British husband to dress more fashionably, Stefani found she had an interest in couture. “I didn’t know about high fashion at all, but you start learning you know?” Stefani says in her SoCal cadence. “Gavin changed me a lot, too; you dress for whomever you’re trying to impress, and he really hated my yellow bondage pants.” She laughs. The result is that Stefani looks more powerful than ever, playing with stereotypes on stage in, say,, an Alice in Wonderland costume with a garter belt and pink Christian Dior heels while she sings about her baby lust.
Stefani will allow that the term “feminist” relates in some way to her; when she was younger, she says, she was passive, a mediocre student, and obsessed with her boyfriend. “I was going out with Tony [Kanal, the bassist in No Doubt], and my whole life was Tony, Tony, Tony,” she says. “So when we broke up, I started writing songs about it, and I realized I wasn’t even a human being until I discovered I could write. Plus, the people around me thought my input, business-wise, wasn’t important just because I was a woman. That changed everything.”
This realization showed her a way to distinguish herself from angry female acts such as Hole and Sarah McLachlan/Jewel songbirds. She still maintains her anti-sexism, girl-power image, and it’s entirely intentional; she wrote “Hollaback Girl” (in which Stefani declares that she’s done with female backstabbing and suggests that she can either rise above criticism or settle things the old-fashioned way) at the last possible moment, jumping on a plane from London to New York so she could work with producer Pharrell Williams, because she realized her album was missing a “don’t fuck with me” track.
The fact that Stefani is hawking cell-phone charms and powder blue cameras may seem inconsistent, until you consider that she’s a consummate girlie girl, so obsessed with feminine accouterments that she admits she puts lipstick on before she goes for a jog. “I love being able to get people to go off,” Stefani says, “but I’m the girl who sold makeup at the dollar makeup mall in high school.” Thus, it makes sense that Stefani would be attracted to Japanese “cute” culture (or “Kawaii”). Stefani doesn’t tend to over-intellectualize, but this too could be considered a feminist act; overtly feminine items like pink Hello Kitty vacuums subvert the stereotype. “We like Gwen Stefani’s strength and that she’s cute,” says Linda Scott, author of Fresh Lipstick: Redressing Fashion and Feminism (Palgrave Macmillan) and associate professor of women’s studies, advertising, and art at the University of Illinois. “She’s essentially able to ‘own her girlness.’ Women consider that courageous.”
On the other hand, Stefani’s closed-lipped stance on women’s politics irks some feminists. “She’s like Madonna in terms of using clothes for self-expression,” allows Ariel Levy, author of Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the rise of Raunch Culture (Free Press). “But she goes out of her way to avoid being a complicated persona. You have to project ideas onto her in order to see greater goals.” Which isn’t to say there’s anything wrong with that. Adds Levy: “Gwen Stefani is fun. I see pictures of her and I’m like, ‘That’s an amazing getup.’ But I don’t know that she’s taking womankind forward. She could, but she’s resolutely invested in not doing that.”
At first Stefani talks somewhat openly about her ten-year relationship with Rossdale. “We’ve been married three years now,” she says with a bubbly giggle. “Can you believe it?” She says they think of themselves as a team, so as she goes on tour in mega-venues and he hits the road, playing intimate clubs with his new band, Institute, this doesn’t manifest itself as competition. “I just went to Miami for two weeks to write songs, and he stayed in London,” she says. “It’s cool because when we’re not together we go full force – I’ll stay at the studio until all hours – and then when we finally are back together we just crash, lie in bed, and watch TV.” When asked how to keep a long-term relationship vital, she replies, “I don’t have any marital advice to give. I’m like, marriage is just hard. If you work, you get the results.” The work must be paying off: Later Stefani will go watch Rossdale film a music video in the San Fernando Valley in 100-degree heat, and her face lights up – she tells a story about the time her husband walked in with his shirt yanked up under his armpits when Stefani’s stylist was at the house. “Girls were screaming,” she says. “I was like, ‘Damn, honey, you can’t walk around like that! We have horny women in here.’”
Stefani is known for writing personal reflections in her lyrics (Tragic Kingdom was essentially a musical journal about her breakup with Kanal). With “What You Waiting For?” a runaway hit – in which she sings about being caught between wanting a child but also wanting to enjoy her fame and glory while it lasts – the world has put her on baby-watch. “I get asked when I’m having a baby in every interview,” she says. “Like today, I talked to these morning-show radio announcers” – she puts on her best DJ voice – ” ‘Gwen! So! When are you going to have a baby!’ ” She shakes her head.
It does sound irritating. And yet when she performs “Waiting,” she holds her hands out as though her entire body is an entire ticking biological clock while singing lyrics like, “Take a chance you stupid ho/ look at your watch now!/ You’re still a super hot female!” She’s 35, and like-minded women may have gotten the message that it’s OK to engage Stefani in discussion about choosing between her career and family.
“I guess,” she says with a shrug. “But even you asking me is weird ’cause I don’t know you.”
Stefani grew up so close to the Disneyland theme park that the ashes from the nightly fireworks show landed in her backyard. (Her parents still live in the house where she grew up.) Disney references are all over her work. “That’s what happens when you grow up across the street,” she says. Besides the title of the record Tragic Kingdom, the Alice in Wonderland costumes, and the Pirates of the Caribbean set in her “Rich Girl” video, she is like one of Disneyland’s beloved characters: sweet, inspiring, adorable, funny, charming – all the things you’d expect her to be. But she can be serious and protective of her privacy. After Stefani shows me some gorgeous black-and-white photos Herb Ritts took of her and Rossdale as a wedding present (”He’s hot, huh?”) that sit atop a grand piano at the far end of the living room, I press her to tell me more about her personal life, with the intention of going deeper. But she gets upset. “Maybe you should just quit while you’re ahead, huh?” she asks, her voice hitting a higher register. “Before you start asking questions I really don’t want to answer.”
She doesn’t yell, but she tries to keep her cool, and doesn’t quite pull it off. The effect is bracing. Considering her strong but vulnerable persona, I want to comfort her, to apologize. Then I find myself bewildered. Isn’t the Hollaback Girl tougher than this? I want to ask, but decide to take her advice.
Stefani is much more relaxed when we’re talking about her future plans, like the fact that she wants to do another film (her first cameo was as Jean Harlow in The Aviator), and that she might release a second solo album next year given the positive reaction to the first. Perhaps not surprisingly, Stefani is trying to keep her personal life out of her writing these days. “It’s not like it was back when I wrote Tragic Kingdom,” she says. “I mean, now, being famous, it will never be the same.” Which isn’t to say that she’s succeeding. “Last week I was with Pharrell, writing this track about dancing, and he kept coming up with these great dance one-liner clichés like ‘Shake that ass’ or whatever. I was like, ‘How did you think of that?’ I came up with all this heartfelt stuff.”
As I leave Stefani’s house, I remember a Disneyland memory of my own: Back when I was little, I took a wrong turn and caught Minnie Mouse taking off her head, revealing, inside the plush costume, a regular lady with her hair in a sweaty ponytail. I screamed in terror and broke out in disappointed tears, the spell broken. Like Minnie, Gwen Stefani may be incomprehensibly different under her Gwen Stefani suit. She is a business woman with a marketing plan and an image to protect. And she may be less carefree and more fragile at times than she appears.
Of course, whether it’s weird for Stefani or not, we all still want to know when the Gwen and Gavin Baby-Watch will be replaced by the patter of little rocker feet. Stefani does make a definite promise, which is also a demand: “When I get pregnant, I will tell everybody, trust me,” she says shortly before I depart, her sweetly sassy attitude back in place. “And I want a big friggin’ shower. OK?”
1986, LOARA HIGH SCHOOL, ANAHEIM, CA
“This is
me in high school. See, I’d already started bleaching my hair, but not all the way, because I had to use that frosting kit—that’s the only thing my mom would let me do. And I was in the marching band, where I fake-played the piccolo.”
1998, MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS, HOLLYWOOD
“People had just started sending me things, so that top was in my house, and I was like, Oh, my God! I have to wear that! Then someone else sent me blue hair dye, so I did my hair blue. That’s how this happened.”
1998, WITH COURTNEY LOVE AT THE GRAMMY AWARDS, NEW YORK CITY
“I made that dress. Courtney and I weren’t friends, but when you go to those things everyone takes pictures with everyone else or whatever.”
2002, DIOR FASHION SHOW, PARIS
“In the early days, I made my own clothes—remake something or go to the fabric store. I didn’t even know that people had stylists— I would have used one if I knew.”
2002, STEFANI AND ROSSDALE’S WEDDING, LONDON
“I didn’t plan our wedding. He did! I was on tour, and it was really romantic because I didn’t do a lot of it. I always thought that I would be that girl obsessing over every fucking ribbon, like tying it on each favor, but I didn’t do that.”
2002, MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS, NEW YORK CITY
“That’s a crazy Galliano skirt that’s like 100 pounds. I think it’s been easy for me and [ex-boyfriend] Tony to stay friends. It wasn’t that hard.”
2003, WITH STING AT THE SUPER BOWL HALFTIME SHOW, SAN DIEGO
“One of the highlights of my life. I met him really a long time ago when I was a teenager, at a concert because my dad got us backstage. He was really mean to me, a busy rock star, like, ‘Don’t bother me.’ Later I told him that story and he was like, ‘Yeah, I used to be a jerk.’ We’re friends now. I’ve been to dinner at his house. He’s delicious. I love him.”
2003, PERFORMING AT THE BILLBOARD MUSIC AWARDS, LAS VEGAS
“No bondage pants or butt flap here. I’m wearing a very risque outfit. That was right after I did The Aviator. I was definitely on that Jean Harlow tip. But I think I always have been. I’ve always loved that whole starlet, pinup bomb look mixed with chola/rasta/gangsta clothes.”
2003, WITH NICOLE KIDMAN AT THE AMERICAN CINEMATHEQUE AWARDS, BEVERLY HILLS
“I’m not friends with Nicole Kidman. She’s amazing, though. I think she’s beautiful.”
2003, WITH ROSSDALE IN LOS ANGELES
“That’s me and my husband grocery shopping. The caption asks if I’m pregnant—what, do I look fat there or something? Everyone has such in opinion on my body, it’s incredible.”
2004, WITH ALICIA KEYS AND MISSY ELLIOT AT THE BRIT AWARDS, LONDON
“The reason I have sunglasses on here is because I got a really bad eye infection on the way there, out of the blue; my eye was this big. I couldn’t even believe I performed.”
2004, MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS, MIAMI
“I took my niece, and Hilary Duff was going to be there, so she thought that was really exciting. She’s going to be ten in December.”
2004, MTV EUROPE MUSIC AWARDS, ROME
“Those shoes are from the Christian Dior couture show, and the dress is Alexander McQueen. The hair things are from when I was in Japan. We got a bunch of stuff for the Harajuku girls, who are standing behind me, and we just stuck a bunch of them in my hair.”
2004, PERFORMING AT KROQ’S “ALMOST ACOUSTIC” CHRISTMAS CONCERT, UNIVERSAL CITY, CA
“Doing songs live is what made me decide to do the tour. It is a whole other level for me to look out and see people sing the songs, so I’m looking forward to it even though it’s a lot of work.”
2004, AT THE GRAMMY AWARDS, LOS ANGELES
“I think I’ve won, like, four. I still haven’t gotten the last one. They take a long time to send them to you because they have to put your name on it. It takes like a year.”
2004, WITH LEONARDO DICAPRIO IN THE AVIATOR
“It was really fun. But it’s hard when you don’t have control. Who wants my opinion when you have Martin Scorsese there? The guy knows what he’s doing.”
2004, WITH NELLEE HOOPER AT THE OPENING OF THE PRADA STORE, BEVERLY HILLS
“Oh, my God, look how tight my body is. That was right after I was on tour last year with No Doubt. We were so fit. We had the show every night, and we’d work out every day. We had, like, two trainers.”
2005, VANITY FAIR OSCAR PARTY, LOS ANGELES
“Those parties are super fun. Everyone’s an actor or somebody you love. It’s Hollywood—glamorous, and everyone’s socializing and friendly. It’s exactly what you’d think it would be if they let you in. You get to meet everyone you never thought you’d get to meet.”