‘To be totally the focus of someone, who was really into sex, was fantastic’: Tracey Emin and Billy Childish on their blazing romance
Never was a couple so combustible, but their relationship in the 80s would influence their entire life’s work. In an extract from a new biography of Childish, the pair, who are somehow still friends, give their side of the story
Bill Lewis – Billy Childish’s great friend and collaborator in the Medway Poets and other endeavours since 1978 – says that Tracey Emin and Billy Childish are two people who should never have been together, romantically. You will not find anybody who knows either who disagrees with this assessment. And yet, Billy Childish and Tracey Emin were romantically together between 1982 and 1985.
What is indisputable is that Emin was a great muse for Childish, first in the many paintings, book covers and record sleeve artwork he produced of them together, continuing to echo through songs contained on the 150-odd albums he’s released since their meeting, as well as a subject within dozens of poetry collections and autobiographical novels. And that Childish was also the defining influence on Emin’s future art. He was her first love. What’s also true is that after Emin was nominated for the Turner prize in 1999, they didn’t speak to each other for 10 years. We will now consider the two primary eyewitness statements to their relationship.
Tracey Emin: ‘He married his ex-girlfriend while he was with me’
When I first met Billy, it was in 1982. Our friend Arthur had a party. When Billy turned up, I hid underneath a table. He sort of pulled me out by my leg and asked my name. He thought I said Dolli. Billy always called me Dolli.
We spent ages talking because Billy’s really funny and I’m quite irreverent. We kept in touch and he came to see me in Margate at Easter. We just started seeing each other.
I write lots of letters, so I wrote him a lot. And he sent me lots of records and stuff, even before our first proper date. Billy didn’t have a telephone, so he used to have to go to a telephone box in Chatham train station. It sounds so old-fashioned, but this is 1982. Billy was only 21, 22. I was just 18.
Billy was a larger-than-life character, very forthright and formidable. In that respect, Billy was a really good influence. He really pushed me to do fine art, because I always wanted to but I didn’t have the qualifications to do a degree. I was also a big influence on him. Billy knew that I was creative: that’s why he was attracted to me. He used me as like a muse for years, even while we weren’t together any more. Billy loved the way that I looked and the way that I was. Whether he was painting or drawing me, it wasn’t like he just thought I looked nice; he liked the energy as well.
Billy was focused on really quite traditional art. I liked expressionism and abstract art. Billy was very particular about what he liked. His art that he liked was the same as his music: Lead Belly, blues, rock’n’roll, two-beat. It had to be figurative and clearly defined. I was a lot more messy than that. We were really fiery together. We looked like we’d just walked off a film set.
Billy couldn’t cope with just having one relationship. He liked to have multiple relationships, and this was very hurtful. He always kept his diary by his bed, and he always used to say to me, “Are you going to read it?” and I’d go, “no”, and Billy knew I never lied about anything. I never read it in a whole year. Anyway, Billy’s dad never used to like me. Billy’s dad visited his mum and we were there. I had to hide. Billy’s dad didn’t like anybody. I was in bed and I finished my book and I lay there for ages. Then I picked up his diary. I turned the first page and the first thing it said was he’d married his ex-girlfriend while he was with me.
That was end of 1982. I was beyond devastated. It wasn’t like he’d fucked someone: he’d gone and married someone! That was one of the worst things that anyone has ever done. He got up in the morning on his birthday – I stayed at home with his mum and made him a cake – and he went and got married. Then he came home and spent the night with me.
I don’t think he slept with her. They did it to get a council flat in Brixton. I was hysterical. I wouldn’t talk to Billy. Billy said to me, “You read it, didn’t you?”
I came back down to Margate. I don’t know how I left Billy. I can’t believe I actually did it, because he had such a hold on people. Billy would say: “But I’ve told you the truth.” He’d sleep with someone on tour. He’d come back, tell me and go: “Well, I told you the truth.” Like the truth made up for what he did wrong. He gave me gonorrhoea, sleeping with a whore in Hamburg. And that kind of fucked up everything for me. It meant that I never had children. The gonorrhoea was pretty horrific.
There was a lot about Billy that I liked, and I got a hell of a lot out of our relationship. What is amazing is that over 40 years later, we’re still in touch and we still care about each other. We’re still friends. Of course, there was over a decade when we didn’t talk! There were 14 years that we didn’t see each other. When we saw each other, I said to Billy: “Oh, your moustache is pretty big.” He said: “Not as big as yours.” It was so funny. It was like I’d seen him the day before.
He’s such a better person than he was. He’s kind, he’s considerate, he’s gentle, he’s a Buddhist. I think looking back on everything he wrote about me, if he could rewrite it, he would. Because it’s pretty misogynistic. There’s some people who will dismiss Billy because of that. But Billy’s apologised. It was the beginning of the 80s, it wasn’t like now, where people have a lot more conviction about their moral compass. Billy was so fucked up from his childhood.
Now the relationship between us is really good. I wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t. I always [said] “no comment” because I wouldn’t say bad things about Billy because I understand that we were both very young, and it was very complex. Billy and I both had complicated childhoods and we clung together.
Billy Childish: ‘I love Tracey, but I’m not interested in any of her nonsense’
I’d been expelled from Saint Martin’s for publishing supposedly obscene poetry, late 81. I was meant to be at art school in London. My father had gone to prison for drug smuggling and I couldn’t afford to go in. I was also doing my poetry and my painting at home.
That was when I met Tracey. We were not contemporaries. I’d already done the Pop Rivets, I was already in the Milkshakes, we had made a few albums, done John Peel sessions. The Medway Poets did a reading for Television South one day. After, there was a party in Gillingham. There was this girl with an amazing figure who talked to me. I asked her name. She said: “Tracey”; I thought she said Rosie. She knew who I was. We walked back from Gillingham. We slept in the bed, and she was content with that.
I then went on tour in Germany. I was still with my girlfriend, who I did later marry. When I got home there were eight or nine long letters from Tracey: we used to call them “Tales of the Unexpected”. They were all about herself. I went down to Margate. She lived with her mother and her grandmother above a fried chicken shop. And we became an item. She used to write to me every day. She was 100% obsessed with me. I found her very attractive and I was also very attracted to the fact that she was so obsessed with me. But she was one of the most clinging, difficult people. I know how harsh that sounds, but I’m just telling you the truth.
I was someone who had been denied love or adoration, had been told: “You’re ugly and unattractive.” So to be totally the focus of someone, someone who was really into sex, was fantastic. My problem was the psychology, and that is why I married my other girlfriend, because I got on with her and I wanted someone I could talk to, because Tracey doesn’t do intimacy in that way.
I never lied to Tracey. I believe in truth more than anyone. But she said that line to me, which I used as a title of a poem: “I’d rather you lied.” She didn’t want to know about anything to do with my true behaviours or desires. How can you have a real relationship with someone who’d rather you lied to them? So I wrote in notebooks instead and, of course, she read the notebooks. I’d have told her if she hadn’t asked me not to.
I split up with Tracey [in 85]. We remained friends until 1991. We went to an art thing which I hated. I was on the cover of Artscribe and Tracey said everyone was jealous. Tracey tried to get me to go along to these things and I said: “I’ve avoided cocaine people in music, and I’m not about to start meeting them in art.”
She got in with them anyway. I was allowed to have my opinions until she was nominated for the Turner prize [in 1999]. Then she rang up: tell Billy he’s no longer my friend. She didn’t speak to me for 10 years, until I had my major breakthrough as an artist and she got in touch with me the next week! She sent a letter congratulating me and wanting to meet up, saying we’ve been friends for 30 years. And I thought: “What the hell?” I didn’t like not being friends with her because I like being friends with everyone.
Since we’ve been in contact again, I keep her at arm’s length. I love Tracey and care about her but she’s full of nonsense, and I’m not interested in her obsession with herself or how clever she thinks she is. The other thing with Tracey is, she didn’t speak to me for 10 years. Now, if Tracey says: “I didn’t talk to you for 10 years because you were a rotten boyfriend, you gave me VD, you’re a fucking arsehole and I was angry”, then you’d have the basis of: “Do you want to go forward as friends?” But it didn’t happen, so how do you go forward? I don’t mind being blamed. Then, at least there’d be a semblance of reality. It is really dangerous for me not to know what is happening. In my family, no one said what was really going on: that’s caused me to require everything to be clearly designated. That might be the psychological reasoning behind my crazy output and my crazy requirement for facts and truth.
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