With her thick blonde hair and ready smile, she’s unmistakably rock star Kim Wilde – and that’s the problem…
It’s also why her favourite sport is skiing. “I have an identity crisis”, she complains. “People identify me… But when I’m disguised in goggles and a woolly hat, then I’m free!”
When the snow melts and she seeks freedom after her current gruelling 20-city European tour with Michael Jackson, she’ll be hiding away at camp sites in the sunny South of France. “There are too many hotels in my life. I love the simplicity of outdoor life, and privacy is very important to me”, she says. “It’s not always loads of fun being a rock star”, adds Kim, an expert after seven years at the top, and with an impeccable pop pedigree as daughter of Sixties’ rocker Marty Wilde and former Vernon Girl, Joyce. “Obviously my choice of career had a lot to do with Dad, but by the time I was about a year old my father’s performing career had been and gone and rock ‘n’ roll was really dead. He gave me jokey guitar classes so I picked up a few chords, and Mum sent me to piano lessons, but I gave that up as soon as I discovered boys and discos!”
She reminisces about her first ever boyfriend, the guy who romanced her in the clubs of exciting Welwyn Garden City. “We’re still great friends, but Dad saw him as the ruination of his little girl! Remember, Marty Wilde had a very clean image… and I had a moral upbringing”, she says. “I love music. I’m lucky that my hobby is also my work. I don’t think I’ll ever be a millionaire, but I’ll certainly be secure for the rest of my life. Not that I really care about money”, she shrugs. “Contentment is to be happy and satisfied with what I’m doing at the moment, and all I really want to do is to be involved with music.”
She works hard and the work itself is hard – but brings rewards like her luxury flat in London’s St John’s Wood, a 140-mph Starion sports car, and a planned country retreat. Minus points are gruelling tours, like the current marathon with Michael Jackson, and unsympathetic bands. “Continental tours are knackering: I get nervous, I worry about my voice holding out, I eat junk food and lose six pounds in a week or two. In short, it’s bloody hard work. Musicians can be sexits and I feel very isolated with the guys all doing their rock star bit, drinking, being outrageous, even throwing televsion sets out of hotel windows. Who needs it?”
Talented, famous, rich and good-looking, Kim attracts men, but is disillusioned with them. “I think about having kids”, she says, “but not with wedding bells before. Love and romance are fine words but they’re not compatible with being a rock star. My little sister Roxanne, who’s seven, says when she grows up she wants to be a pop star or ride horses. I tell her, ‘Stick to the horses…'”