P!nk reveals she gets so mad at husband Carey Hart she wants to jab him with cutlery
The singer opened up on her personal struggles with motherhood and marriage - having previously split from her husband of 11 years twice
INTERNATIONAL pop superstar PINK has sold 47million albums and amassed a £100million fortune in 17 incredible years at the top of the charts.
But in an emotional, revealing — and sometimes hilarious — new edition of my Bizarre Life podcast, she talks about her personal struggles with motherhood and admits marriage can be so tough she sometimes wants to “stab” her husband Carey Hart “with a fork”.
She tackles some of the problems with long-term relationships in her soul-baring new album, Beautiful Trauma, admitting much of it is inspired by her 11-year marriage to the retired Motocross star, who she has previously split from twice.
In episode 22 of Bizarre Life — which you can subscribe to now on iTunes, Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast provider — the singer tells me: “Being with the same person for a really long time — we’re going on 16, 17 years now and we’ve grown up together — and it’s work.
“But it’s beautiful, it’s worth it, otherwise we wouldn’t do it.”
That struggle is clear on my favourite track on the album, Whatever You Want, which is about trying to keep her marriage on track.
Pink, real name Alecia Beth Moore, explains: “It just punches me in the stomach every time I hear it.
“My favourite line in that song is, ‘I feel like our ship’s going down tonight but you’re the one I want to sink with’.
“Relationships are not cute. But they keep you busy.”
So how has she managed to get the marriage back on track after two high-profile year-long breaks?
“I just try to laugh as much as possible. And we go through moments where honestly I look at him and I think, ‘I’ve never liked you at all, there’s nothing I like about you, I’ve never liked you, I’ll never like you again’.
“And then five minutes later I’m like, ‘You look really good in those jeans’.
“And then two days later he’s helping me off the ledge and telling me things that only he could tell me because he’s known me that long.
“And then the next day I want to stab him with a fork. So yeah . . . ”
That trademark honesty has also extended to parenting her nine-month-old son, Jameson Moon Hart.
She recently divided opinion after sharing a text message exchange with a close friend, in which she asked: “Why do babies cry so much? I feel like he’s f***ing with me at this point.”
Her friend responded simply, writing: “Babies are c****.”
Pink reveals the “funny, late-night, joking, honest conversation” was with an English BFF who she describes as a “nutter butter”.
As for the reaction, she says: “Most people were like, ‘Somebody finally said it out loud’.
“And other people were disappointed in me ‘because I’m their role model’ and I’m supposed to be perfect and not use bad language any more.”
Launching an album with a young baby — who she describes as a “very fat, delicious little meatball” — certainly brings its own challenges.
But she says with a smile: “He is edible. That’s how I cope because he looks at me and he sticks his tongue out and smiles and it adds like six months to my life.
“It gives me the six months back that he took the previous night screaming. Yeah one day at a time. Sometimes I hide under tables and be really quiet so they can’t find me.”
Pink also has a six-year-old daughter, Willow, who she paid tribute to at MTV’s Video Music Awards in August.
Reflecting on that moment, which has since gone viral, she says: “I just wanted to share it for her.
"And I just wish somebody would’ve told us when we were in school that there’s a world out there full of people just like you that are waiting to love you.
“And that you just have to get through this hell and kids are mean.”
She adds: “My brother was the most bullied kid I’ve ever seen with my own eyes and it turned me into a fighter and a person that sticks up for other people.
“I think people should live and let live and for all of these reasons and for my daughter just trying to figure out what it means to be a girl and what it means to be a human in 2017.
"I want her to be one of the voices in her world. I want her to be one of the voices in her head.
“It’s a line I wrote in Perfect — change the voices, make them like you instead.
“It’s lifetime work for me. I’ve been doing it all my life, I’m trying to get the voices in my head to like me.”
Pink adds that her daughter was struck when she shared her own difficulties growing up.
She says: “She couldn’t believe I got made fun of because I’m the sun and moon and stars to her. And she was like, ‘But you’re beautiful’ and I was like, ‘But so are you’.
“We’re all perfect just the way we are and screw everybody that doesn’t think so.
“And usually the person that’s saying that really doesn’t like themselves very much and they’re just projecting their crap on to you, so it’ll be a lifelong conversation.
“It’s a lifelong conversation for all of us. We all, everyday, have to remind ourselves we’re good enough.”
In recent years, there has been a big change in terms of openness to the debate around gender neutrality. I ask what her view is on kids being raised too much as a boy or a girl.
She responds: “I think that there is more to life than labels.
“And I think that for me as a parent, specifically with my children, I want them to try everything until they find who they are and what they like.
“It’s not my job to tell them what’s right. It’s my job to tell them to listen to what’s right for them.”
She then quickly adds: “Except climbing on the outside of the house, that’s just not right and that’s something Willow really enjoys doing and that’s just wrong.”
And that sums up Pink — disarmingly honest and very inspiring but with a wicked sense of humour.
UPS AND DOWNS... LIKE LIFE
IT’S been a five-year wait since Pink’s The Truth About Love – but new album Beautiful Trauma doesn’t disappoint.
Pink’s writing features on every song on the album, which mixes upbeat tracks and soul-baring emotional ballads.
She says: “It’s a mixed bag. It’s all the many personalities that one life holds.
“I went through a moment last year where all I was writing was really sad slow songs and I’m not ADELE so I don’t think anybody wanted to hear just that from me, but I just kept going, I never stopped, I kept going.
“I wrote over 50 songs and I worked with a lot of new people that I hadn’t worked with before and just incredibly talented human beings. And I had a blast doing it.”
End row Swiftly
PINK believes that if she can resolve her mega pop feud with CHRISTINA AGUILERA then there’s still hope for TAYLOR SWIFT and KATY PERRY.
She says of pop rivalries: “I’ve been in them in my day. And they’re not fun.
“Look, human beings don’t all get along but I think there’s also a trend of pitting women against each other and we’re kind of set up to fail with each other and I know that deep down we all really want the other person to win.
“And I think what’s cool about life is everybody can win at the same time.”
When it comes to Taylor and Katy, Pink has decided to stay neutral.
She says: “It’s just silly. You know what, let the politicians be the nasty ones right now. We don’t need to add to that. People need to be kind.
“I almost got involved in that whole thing. I don’t care, I don’t care about any of it and I didn’t want to be involved in it.
“And I like both of them and I think everybody should just hug. If Christina and I can make up, anybody can.
“It’s over. It’s all love, it’s serious love.”
BIZ METER: PINK ON...
- SPEECHES: I WROTE an actual speech for the MTV awards as I don’t do this a lot. I get nominated a lot but I don’t ever win.
Carey usually ends up making me tinfoil trophies. And I wrote for this award, “I’m still here” and Carey was like: “You sound like an idiot, rip that up, you’re dumb, don’t say any of that.” - LINDA PERRY FEUD: I BELIEVE that she (4 NON BLONDES singer) was a very important figure in my life that then turned into a very important person and at the end of the day, after a while, you just let stuff go and you forgive and it’s all good. We don’t have time for that s*** any more – to hold grudges and be mad at each other.
- LATEST SINGLE: I FEEL great about What About Us. The world in general is a really scary place full of beautiful people. Humans are resilient and there’s a lot of wonderful – like I said in the song – “billions of beautiful hearts” and there are bad eggs in every group. And they make it really hard for the rest of us.
- MUMFORD AND SONS: I WAS thinking about them when I wrote (new song) Where We Go. I’m a huge fan of theirs.
It’s all over the place. I’m just super interested. I love it all.
I’m still listening to BOB MARLEY and PATSY CLINE – I’m all over the place.
Social media skew
PINK reckons social media is distorting people’s view of the world – an idea she expresses on new song Better Life.
She says: “That song was inspired by a conversation I was having with a friend of mine who is going through a divorce.
“We were talking about social media and how we only sort of post the good stuff so we tend to start believing everybody else’s life is better than ours, and it’s all bulls***.”
Pink adds more people should start sharing “truth” online.
She says: “I was going to start an Instagram page which was all the bad stuff that no one actually posts.
“Like what you look like when you wake up in the morning or in the middle of an argument or when your baby won’t go to sleep.”
I’d definitely follow that page.
