Interview: Simone Lahbib - How my obsessive fans have freaked me out;
Simone Lahbib found fame as a bisexual in Bad Girls, but it has led to her being
harassed in real life.

The Mirror
(London, England)

June 30, 2001

 

Byline: Christine Smith

Bad Girls star Simone Lahbib arrives at the restaurant with a blue and white woolly hat covering her dark blonde bob. It blends in perfectly with her Marithe and Francois Girbaud blue designer fleece top, black trousers and trainers.

But Simone is not trying to set a new trend in fashion. She is actually in disguise, and the hat is her attempt to shield herself from obsessive fans.

Over the last 12 months, her character, bisexual governess Helen Stewart, has become such a cult figure in the hit prison drama that some fans - mostly women - have taken to following Simone home.

"One fan got hold of my mobile number and started calling me 12 times a day for five days," says Simone, 31, in her strong Scottish accent. "It did freak me out. I registered it with the Malicious Calls Bureau, but then I decided to call the girl myself from a phone box to tell her to stop doing this. I wanted to know why she was harassing me and how she had got my number.

"It turned out she wanted me to do an on-line chat on an unofficial Bad Girls website. She was obviously going about it in completely the wrong way. I told her, `This is my private number. You must promise me to stop or I'll have to get the police involved'.

"Thank God she did, saying, `I'm sorry, I got carried away'. But a month later I received a letter from her. It was very odd, she was writing as if she knew me which, of course, she doesn't. Eventually it stopped, but there have been other incidents.

"Fans are constantly logging on to websites, pretending they are me and inviting other users to ask anything they like. Then they give replies back, but make up personal information."

Six months ago the situation got so bad that Simone called the police. "Someone had put my home address, telephone number, a map to the house and my parents' address on one of the unofficial websites," she says. "Any old person could log on and get the details. I spoke to the police and the information was removed very quickly. It's fine now."

Did she find the experience terrifying? Taking a sip of her favourite drink, a G&T, Simone considers the question then shakes her head.

"I don't find it scary - rather annoying," she says. "It is crossing a line that shouldn't be crossed, and not respecting my privacy. But involving my parents, well, that is another matter and it makes me very angry."

It has made Simone adopt a far more cautious approach towards fans. "I won't be able to respond to my mail personally," she says. "I have to take a step back. I expect a certain amount of stuff from the fans and that is understandable. I am more than happy to go out and meet them, go to fund-raising events and so on. But when it is personal stuff, that's not fine at all."

Being strong-willed has helped Simone get through such incidents. In fact, her own experiences in life make the going-ons in the fictional corridors of Larkhall Prison pale into insignificance. Bullying, being mugged... Simone has faced her share of ordeals.

Born in Stirling, she was the eldest of five children raised by dad Joseph, a French-Algerian master-chef at Gleneagles Hotel, and mum Jean, a poet/artist. She enjoyed her childhood - apart from secondary school.

"I went to a tough local comprehensive and I was bullied," says Simone. "Not in the extreme form, it was the same for a lot of kids there. There was name calling, taunting, threats and on a few occasions it became physical. There was a period when I would deliberately try and stay in at lunchtimes.

"One time someone warned me that a gang of girls were waiting for me with scissors at the end of the corridor. They were going to cut my hair off and flush my head down the toilet. I obviously didn't go down that corridor. I never instigated anything, but I did make sure I defended myself.

"I didn't want to involve or worry my parents, but eventually I did tell my mum and dad. Some girls had been threatening me for a while, so my dad confronted them and said he'd call the police. They stopped after that. I wasn't particularly disturbed by it - it was just annoying, part of growing up."

I tell Simone that I doubt I'd be quite so forgiving.

"Ah well," she replies. "I think it was because I was involved in lots of clubs. Plus I lived in a nice house in a so-called posh area, so I was perceived as snobby. Children look for anything that makes you different. I had a French dad and an unusual surname... A lot of children experience this. Some get it really bad."

On reflection, she thinks attending ballet lessons may have played a part in being bullied, too. "I had good posture which maybe made me look a bit aloof," she says. "Perhaps that gave out the wrong signals. But honestly I had a great childhood, a very caring family." Smiling, she adds that her parents are "still together... Isn't that nice? They hold hands like lovebirds".

After leaving school, Simone won a place at Queen Margaret's drama college in Edinburgh. She enjoyed the course enormously and went on to star in a local Christmas show, which wasn't quite so much fun. There was, she recalls, a "short, ugly, balding manager with a chip on his shoulder" who gave her hell.

"I played a witch and was the choreographer as well," she says. "I don't know why, but that man had it in for me from the beginning. Made things very difficult. One day he completely lost his temper because I dared to stand up to him and he chased me backstage with his fist.

"That was the last straw. I phoned my agent to get me out of the contract, but she was out. When I returned, he'd completely changed his tune and couldn't apologise enough. So why put me through all that grief? I think he was just an insecure little man with a bit of power, still acting the school bully."

In person Simone is an upbeat little soul. Pretty, too. In fact, she bears an uncanny resemblance to Hollywood star Michelle Pfeiffer with her sexy figure, blonde hair and fair complexion.

Fortunately, her good looks have not stopped her winning meaty parts. Her first major role was as a rape victim in a regional soap, London Bridge, eight years ago. Simone won't go into details, but she says she drew "a lot of experience" for the part "from acquaintances who had been raped".

Simone herself has been the victim of violence. "It was a long time ago," she says. "But a man followed me and mugged me at my front door."

I want to know how she felt about that, but Simone is keen to move on, explaining, "It's all in the past".

Her next role was in a London stage play and involved nudity. "It was an awful experience," she says with a sigh. "The producers put an advert in a London magazine making it sound like it was a peepshow, so all these seedy men with raincoats started turning up."

More TV appearances followed, including Thief Takers and Dangerfield. Then, two years ago, Bad Girls came along. This role, more than any other, has pushed Simone into the limelight. Her character Helen has enjoyed a passionate romance with inmate Nikki Wade. But now fellow officer Jim Fenner has found out about this lesbian affair and Helen's future in the prison service is in jeopardy.

Despite her popularity, at the end of the current series Simone plans to bow out. Her decision has no connection with those obsessive fans, she merely wants to "try her hand at something new".

Did kissing another woman put her off the part? "No, I don't mind playing a lesbian," she says. "But strictly speaking Helen is bisexual. It was all right kissing another woman - different, but not that different from kissing a man. In some ways it's easier. My fiance jokes that at least he doesn't have to worry!"

Simone refuses to talks about the man in her life or even name him. All she will say is that they met more than three years ago, that they live together in North London and that she is blissfully happy. "It is the sense of commitment, and it's lovely to know that someone wants to commit and spend the rest of their life with you," she says.

As for the future, she wants children, but "not just yet". Starring in a film is another dream, although she has no plans to do a "Catherine Zeta-Jones" and move to America. "We'll just have to wait and see what happens," she says. "But it is time to move on."

As Simone gets up to leave, she puts that striking blue and white hat back on. It seems she's going into hiding again.

l Bad Girls, Tuesday, ITV, 9pm.

 

 

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