Chapter 6 ~ Believer
March 13, 2010
There was a time when I believed.
I believed love was love.
I believed that when someone told me I was fantastic, they meant it. That when the photographer told me the camera loved me, then he was besotted by association; audience twice as much again.
I believed that, because I had been on television week-in, week-out for the first five years of my life, people would remember me; still caring for Walter, the cute kid from ‘Family Rules!’
Like crap they would.
I appeared on talk shows! On my own. At four years of age. Smiling and being cute. Chatting with the host like an old friend.
Two years’ later, I was no-one.
And my parents, those so-called elders and betters, couldn’t handle it.
So they moved away from the UK.
Moved to the USA.
Moved me to the USA.
They’ve never told me whether it was an honest attempt to start again; for my sake, their sakes or a little bit of both. To do so would have involved talking with me, having an honest-to-God, down-to-earth conversation; more than just a nod in passing.
My parents don’t do conversation.
Not with me.
Once I came off ‘Family Rules!’ they moved our little, broken, three piece suite of a family to America, leaving my manager and agent wondering where it had all gone wrong, where they’d missed a chance, where they might have cut some different deal, where their next meal was coming from.
My parents. Didn’t care about me when I was making money, even less when I wasn’t. They weren’t pushy, stage-parents. If anything, the complete opposite.
Here they were, living the eighties to the hilt, spending her money while he cut his teeth in the advertising business. He scaled the cliff from creative floor to project management to key account executive to Managing Director while his one and only son lived the first five years of his life on television.
Both of us growing up in public.
Bastard.
I’m pretty sure that the move to the States was triggered purely by the potential for embarrassment that I represented once my star had faded.
Too many dinner parties where they could suddenly be asked: Aren’t you little Walter’s parents? Whatever happened to him?
Like I was an object they had misplaced when they were kids.
Like they would even know what my character’s name was.
I think they got tired of shrugging their shoulders and reciting well rehearsed lines.
He’s a delicate soul… Suffering from the schedule, you know… We really want him to have a normal upbringing…
Yeah, right.
For that, read:
Ken’s tantrums are getting out of hand, he cut himself with a knife last week when we told him ‘no’… Ken’s exhibiting signs of depression… He’s only five, but his therapist is suggesting we might want to get him checked out for schizophrenia, which could explain the mood swings… We don’t like the fact that you’re asking these questions, so we’re going to avoid them by moving to America… No-one knows Ken there… At least there we won’t be so distracted by him…
My parents; a model of caring and nurture. For themselves.
They ripped apart my belief system for the sake of their social circles.
I was loved.
I believed I was loved.
The love dwindled.
I thought it was me. My fault.
They thought it was me. My fault.
No-one told me otherwise.
They just moved me to America.
As punishment for letting love die.
For losing my belief.
My parents.
