Celebrity flatmate

A few years ago, I answered an advertisement on a flat-sharing website and ended up living with a fledgling pop star — I’ll call him Sam. He was not long out of adolescence, and was gnawed at by his need for recognition. For years, he and his bandmates had been plastering the internet with tracks, hoping to attract attention, but without much luck.

When I moved in, I was dimly aware that my new flatmate sang, but I didn’t own a TV, so what little coverage they’d received had passed me by. I imagined them performing in dismal, carpeted pubs on the North Circular and getting the bus home.

Then, one Saturday afternoon not long after I moved in, I went to get my hair cut. While my head was being scrubbed, I opened the magazine I’d picked up on the way to the basin and there, on my lap, was Sam, styled like James Dean with shadow obscuring most of his face. The accompanying text revealed that the first single from his band’s latest album — their loudest, shiniest, most commercial effort to date — was soon to be released. Could this, the writer wondered, be the one that propelled them into the public eye?

Shortly afterwards the single came out, and went straight into the Top 10. Suddenly, I couldn’t walk into a newsagent or get a cab without hearing its jump-around chorus thumping out of speakers. The lyrics called out to teenagers lolling on the scorched grass in suburban parks, and Sam became what every teenager thinks they want to be: famous.

Fan mail started arriving for him by the kilo, written in glittery ink that smelled of strawberries. His Twitter account was besieged by strangers, attracting new followers at a rate of something like one every nine minutes.