Friday, December 21, 2007

And away we go. A-bloody-gain.

It's hard to believe there's a media outlet - with the possible exception of The Tablet - that hasn't run some quasi-exclusive based on the slight Alesha-Harvey-Javine love-muddle, but the Mail reckons there's still more revelation to be had. It's MC Harvey who's walked off with a big cheque this morning.

Of course, with Alesha now one Strictly from being an official National Treasure, Harvey's in an awkward position. He doesn't want to look too bad, but he did dump her:

'Why I walked out on Strictly's Alesha,' by her unfaithful husband

The reason, of course, was that at the time she was pop-dumper's Alesha rather than Strictly's Alesha, and Harvey had wedding vows that ended "...as long as we both shall appear in Heat."

Harvey tries to act like he's abashed:
"What I did was 100 per cent wrong," Harvey says. "But I'm not perfect - no one is.

"Before I met Javine, no matter how many beautiful girls there were, not one of them meant anything to me as much as Alesha did."

As working definitions of "not being perfect" go, being "100% wrong" would be a useful one. But who couldn't fail to warm to Harvey's solid commitment to his wife, refusing to look at anyone else besides his wife. Apart from Javine. Who he dumped his wife for, of course.
"Our wedding was fantastic. I've still got a DVD that I watch by myself.

"Alesha looks amazing. When I saw her walking down the aisle I was gone. I cried my eyes out and my best man, Premiership footballer Sean Davis, was crying too.

"It hurts when I watch it. I'm not going to lie to you. Naturally it hurts, because I've got a lot of feelings."

One of them being: Alesha is now more famous than Javine again.

We imagine, by the way, that it must delight the seven-months gone Javine that Harvey sits watching his marriage to another woman over, and over, and over, and over.
"Last time I watched it I was looking at the DVD going: 'Flipping hell, from that to me now going to be a father with another woman.'

"I didn't see my life going that way."

Funny that - at the wedding ceremony, Harvey didn't expect to be dumping the woman he was marrying and run off with someone else.

Harvey is eager - desperate, even - to set the ever-increasing record straight:
Javine and Alesha were never friends and I never got caught in bed by Javine's boyfriend.

"It's utter bullshit. That's the thing that's got to me, all these lies."

Yes. Let's get totally clear why Harvey is a self-serving, hounding shitbag. There's plenty of reasons without the need to make stuff up.
"Javine's ex decided to make a quick buck and he never loved her because you don't make money against your girlfriend."

Your ex-wife, she's fair game to sell stories about for cash. But selling your girlfriend? Why, could a man drop any lower?
It's true our relationship was physical before I discussed it with Alesha and that's where I was wrong.

"It was physical once - not three times or five times. It wasn't an on-going affair.

It must be terrible for Harvey to be thought of as someone who shags another woman behind his wife's back repeatedly.
"I thought: 'What have I done?' The real story is that Javine's ex saw my car outside the house and told Alesha I was seeing Javine.

"Alesha asked me when I got home.

"I could have lied, but I didn't want to be in the marriage anymore."

We love the way that Harvey can't quite decide if the marriage was dead and his heart was with Javine - his wife, presumably, not understanding him - or if it was a one-off with Javine that he couldn't do any more.

Not to mention the bold claim that he "could have lied" - although, what with Javine's recently ex-boyfriend having told his wife what was going on, it's not entirely clear how.

Harvey, though, didn't find it easy, bless him:
"I knew I loved someone else and my heart was gone from my home. So I told her the truth. It's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.

"I've performed in front of hundreds of thousands of people, presented national television, I've done films with Hollywood actors, but this was ten times worse, telling her I'd slept with another woman."

There's a handy rule of thumb: it's ten-times more difficult to confess to adultery than it is to be a guest panelist on The Wright Stuff, or to play "King" in the 2003 movie Out For A Kill (a role that got star billing, or at least billing one slot above "DEA Agent".)

After running through the "life in a Ghetto in Battersea" stuff, and the wedding - he knows a lot about it, what with the having watched the DVD repeatedly and all - Harvey stresses to the Mail readership how important his relationship was:
At the end of the day, with celebrity comes responsibility.

"Our relationship was iconic. Black people had never had somebody they could call their own."

Yes. That's what did it for Harvey - being the Queen and Philip and Posh and Becks for the black community all rolled into one. How could mere humans cope with so much pressure?

Harvey - like the Rabbi Lionel Blue - ends with a story to illustrate his point:
"I was standing outside a nightclub and two 16-year-old boys came up to me and said: 'You're so lucky. You've gone out with the two most beautiful girls in the industry.'

"Then one said: 'I think Alesha's fitter.' The other one goes: 'I like Javine.' They're 16. They don't get it. They just see beauty. They don't see the person."

Sixteen year old boys saying "the most beautiful girls in the industry"? Even without the self-aggrandising angle, there's something there that doesn't ring true. Like the whole of Harvey's proud grandstanding, come to think of it.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've got to hand it to him, he certainly knows how to get the most out of his interviews. Who else could take something as personal as confessing their infidelity, and still manage to turn it into a mini-CV?

"It's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I've performed in front of hundreds of thousands of people, presented national television, I've done films with Hollywood actors, but this was ten times worse, telling her I'd slept with another woman."

"...in fact it was probably even worse than having to accept platinum discs for my debut album, appearing on 'The Games', hosting the popular dance competition 'Bump n Grind' on youth cable channel Trouble and being available for voice-overs and panto"

Anonymous said...

Mate - you start off by slagging off newspapers keeping banging on about the 'the slight Alesha-Harvey-Javine love-muddle' then write a THOUSAND words on it!

Desperate!

Simon Hayes Budgen said...

So, let's get this straight: the other day you complained that my press commentary was too slight because it consisted of little more than going "Gordon Smart has printed a picture of a girl" and now you're upset because I actually drilled down into a story to look at it in some detail.

And, erm, then apparently ran the whole thing through a word counter.

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