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The Hilton Humiliation

Why I will never audition again

By Shauna MullenPublished 3 years ago Updated 2 years ago 5 min read
14

When I was sixteen, I wanted nothing more than to be a singer. It was my dream and something I still wish to this day. I signed myself up to audition for The Voice UK and was delighted when I was chosen to go up to London and audition. For context, there are a set of evaluations you go through before you go for the official blind auditions which are televised. They are called producer auditions and you have to prepare two songs: One acapella and One with a backing track or instrument. One has to be over 150 BPM (Beats per minute) and one below. I chose The A Team by Ed Sheeran and Pumped-Up Kids by The Foster People. I practised for weeks and was determined to do this for myself. Little did I know, it was going to be the biggest embarrassment of my life.

Being 16, I had to have a parental guardian with me and my mum couldn’t get off work so it had to be my dad. He was a singer in a rock band and he was more than happy to come with me. We set off on the coach at 1am for a 5-hour journey up to London. We wouldn’t get there until 6am and my audition was at 9am. It was going to be a close call getting up there and I needed to sleep so I was fresh and ready for my audition. Everybody on the coach had the same idea as me to sleep through most of the journey however, my dad had other plans for all of us. 1:05am my dad slipped on his headphones whilst we were all about to drift off into a peaceful slumber and sang at the top of his lungs to all the rock and heavy metal albums he had on his phone. Trust me, he had what seemed like every single one that existed back in 2016. With a simultaneous groan, everyone looked at me as if I wasn’t in the same boat as them and I was responsible. I elbowed my dad to try and get him to take his headphones off only to be met with a look as if I was in the wrong in this situation.

“Shut up, everyone is trying to sleep and you’re being really loud”

I took the scolding look to save myself from the humiliation. Finally, at 1:30 am we had silence. Until we were all woken up at 2am by the sound of my dad’s ear piercing, out of tune screech to more heavy metal. Every time I gave him a nudge to be quiet it was faced with my dad acting like he was the teenager in this circumstance followed by louder singing. I can honestly say it was the longest 5 hours of my life I’ve ever experienced.

It was 6am and with 20 minutes of sleep under our belts, everybody on the coach stepped off with angry, frustrated whispers directed at both my dad and I. 3 hours until my audition, I tried my hardest to push the awful coach experience into the back of my mind and focus on what I went there for. We made our way to a café to wake up with some caffeine. The smell of the hot mocha sat in front of me helped me concentrate on revising the lyrics and burning them into my brain to liberate myself from anymore embarrassment this trip. After two and a half hours, it was time to make our way to the auditions. They were held at The Hilton Hotel.

As I walked into the hotel lobby, I was overwhelmed with all the fancy, expensive surroundings that I knew my family would never have stepped foot in if it wasn’t for this moment. My tiredness was replaced by nerves as waves of anxiety overcame me. My dad and I were both led up into the waiting room and I was praying to the universe that my audition went well. I had already been embarrassed once on this trip and I didn’t want anything else to go wrong. It was my turn to audition. 10 minutes, he just had to stay quiet for 10 minutes. The universe clearly didn’t listen to my prayers because as we walked in there three producers of the show, two attractive females with one male, looked up with equally as hopeful eyes I had. That look quickly went away as my dad started to make inappropriate comments I can only describe as sexual harassment.

“Look at the tits on the pair of them.”

I was mortified. I wanted the world to open up and swallow me whole into a pit of despair. My audition was over before I even had a chance to begin. The male producer stared at me with distain in his face.

“Let's get this over with, shall we?”

I gave everything I could with the sleep deprived, anxiety-ridden state I was in. I hoped I was good enough to make them forget about my dad’s heinously inappropriate comment. I got through the acapella part of my audition. Song One was done and it was time to sing with the backing track. Pumped-up Kicks started to play through the bass heavy speakers and my dad slithered his way behind the two-female producers before they got a chance to hear him. As I sang with everything I had, I saw my dad whispering something to both of them. A few lines into my second song, I was waved to stop and told to come back with a different guardian next year. My dad was outraged and started to swear at everyone in the room. It went just as well as I expected it to go when I had a child trapped in a 40-year-olds body with me. I never found out what my dad was saying to the two women but I can’t imagine it was anything good. I feel sorry they had to go through that. I haven’t auditioned for anything since because the embarrassment of it all comes back to me every time I think about trying out for anything.

Family
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About the Creator

Shauna Mullen

I like to write about true crime and do small investigations. I also write fiction sometimes

Reader insights

Nice work

Very well written. Keep up the good work!

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Comments (1)

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  • Novel Allen2 years ago

    Why would you let your dad's lapse in judgement dissuade you from a path that you love? Think of great women who have gone through and overcome way worse adversity. If you sing well, please go and sing, prove him wrong for his obvious selfishness.

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