The Industry

Born Again

You are all, as you are, invited to the judges' home.

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I was very, very impressed with your vocals. But you do understand that when I put someone into the live shows, I have to have total and utter confidence that they can deliver under an awful amount of pressure...

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And here we are, standing in front of the massive crowd. Being recorded, this is definitely going to be on television and YouTube. This is the new Fifth Harmony- the real Fifth Harmony. Right?

The music starts, it's time to carry out our plans to show everybody the new us. On queue, we all throw off our hoods and our 'fifth' abandons ship. "Who said I was an angel."

Next thing I know, I have a towel draped across my drenched shoulders and we are walking towards our dressing rooms. I had been so nervous about this performance for so many reasons and now it's over, why do I not feel relieved? It's a highlight of our careers, we have only been able to rehearse the new choreography for a week and a half, preparing to share our story through our performance.

The reactions come in almost immediately, as we had anticipated. We are shown a lot of support, harmonizers have shown their love for us and definitely make themselves known throughout all these years. However, there will also be the hatred and the people who take our story and turn it into evil. They say we threw her off stage, she was kicked out of the group, we are nothing without her. The girls and I prepared ourselves for this, everybody interprets the same thing differently and that's okay.

The four- or the five of us have been through much more than we could ever share with our fans. We've shared our good times and our amazing memories with the millions of people that watch us from all across the globe. Even some of our sad and upsetting moments have been shared, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Our lives were unfolding in front of the press, one wrong move, and millions are there to witness it.

I wish we could go back to before everything got so complicated. Before we signed that damn contract and our souls were practically sucked out by that large entity, the music industry.

How did we sign our lives away without any concerns about the future? As a sixteen-year old, I went into the X Factor, just like my bandmates. We were placed together in a group with other girls who were total strangers at the time, but it beat being sent home, we were given a second chance. We were shocked to have even made it to third place, but still didn't win the show, so we expected to go on our own ways and say goodbye to our new acquaintances. Before it was time to go home, they offered us contracts as a group, this opportunity was seen as our golden gate, our dreams were coming true. Looking back, I see the naivety and cringe, knowing how much pain our oversights had caused us.

Unfortunately, time is a force that cannot be undone, so I'm forced to focus on controlling the present and the future. Although we've been pushed to our limits on our physical, emotional, and mental barriers, Ally was the one that got a part of our control back. She was responsible for the beginning of our new era and the reason the four of us are still together. We were finally able to have a say in what we do.

We were becoming zombies before, treated almost like slaves for the label. Whether it was a concert day, press day, meetings and rehearsals that run from the morning to late at night, whatever the day called for. It had exhausted us. No breaks. No time for family or friends, just constant work.

Things have been better in that sense lately, our contracts had been revised, we even gained the rights to our own band name. Thanks to Dina LaPolt, we're also now better informed about what is on contracts and what should raise a red flag or not when we're given things to sign off on. We actually have time off and have more say in what we do now, it seems heavenly; if only this would've come along before management came along that day...