Will.i.am opens up about former best friend Cheryl, reveals he’s battled with depression and thanks ADHD for his success
STEPPING into will.i.am’s world is a unique experience, to say the least.
Two blacked-out people carriers pull up to our studio door, spilling an entourage of at least six, including a big, burly security guard.
But The Voice UK judge, who’s on our screens for the final of the ITV show tonight, is in no hurry to emerge.
Mixed messages slowly feed back – “he’s asleep”, “he’s on the phone” – before Will, 42, finally appears. It’s certainly worth the wait.
During our interview, even the simplest of questions can elicit a conversational tangent about anything from sushi to space travel.
Earlier this year, Will made the move over to ITV with The Voice UK when it was poached from the BBC for £335million, making him the only judge to have been on every series since the show’s launch in 2012.
Will is clearly enjoying his new home alongside Tom Jones, Jennifer Hudson and Gavin Rossdale, as he’s already confirmed he’ll be back in the chair next year.
“I had a blast on the BBC, but ITV is really doing a job at making it theirs.”
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In 2016, a three-page list titled “Tips for maximizing your interview time with will.i.am” went viral (“Questions should be one sentence… straightforward” and “Avoid asking questions that will require repeating information already shared”).
Thankfully, there aren’t any pointer sheets handed out on Will’s first Fabulous cover shoot today – although it soon becomes clear that some topics are strictly off-limits.
Take, for instance, whether he’s looking for a relationship.
“Um,” he replies, “I go to [posh London sushi restaurant] Nobu every Tuesday and I love that yellowtail jalapeño. It means I love sushi. Yeah, I’m cool.”
Before we get a chance to push for clarification, his manager interjects – no more questions on the subject.
William James Adams Jr was raised in the Estrada Courts housing projects in the poor East LA neighbourhood of Boyle Heights by single mum Debra, along with two brothers and a sister.
Poverty remains rife and education levels low there – crime rates are 47% higher than the national average with 13 murders over the past year.
“Gangs, guns, warring between the gangs, cops warring with the gangs, cops shooting kids, kids shooting cops. It was bad. But my mum kept us safe.”
Keen to give her son the best start in life, Debra encouraged Will to be unique and refused to send him to the local Theodore Roosevelt Senior High.
Instead, from the age of seven he made a four-hour-round bus trip to attend schools in the upmarket Brentwood area, which focused on science and technology.
It was while attending John Marshall High School that he became best friends with Allan Pineda Lindo AKA apl.de.ap (who Will simply refers to as “Apple”), later forming The Black Eyed Peas.
Gangs, guns, warring between the gangs, cops warring with the gangs, cops shooting kids, kids shooting cops. It was bad. But my mum kept us safe.
Will.i.am
Another potential obstacle that Will overcame as a child was possible attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
“I believe whoever came up with ADHD was just trying to sell medicine. I think it’s called: ‘You’re creative and you can focus on more things’.
“Maybe the school system needs to be a little more flexible for all different types of learning needs. Those that don’t fit in that box, there’s no other box for them, so doctors say: ‘You have ADHD,’ and try and tame the mind to be like the other minds.
“Every person I know, who’s a little ‘off’, is the most creative. Their hyperactivity means they’re capable of taking on a bunch of things at once. Thank god my mum never put me on [anti-hyperactivity drug] Ritalin.”
He adds: “I’ve learned how to work the ‘H’ in ADHD to my benefit. I can work longer hours than anyone on this planet. It so happens that my work is around creativity so I can go and go and go. I could work 20-hour days.
“The ADD part, well that means I’m a good multitasker. I know there’s a difference between ADHD, like I have, and borderline chemically imbalanced. But there’s a way to balance your own chemicals without chemicals.”
It’s at this point he reveals for the first time that he’s battled depression: “I knew something was wrong with me. My grandma and my uncle helped me. Depression, anxiety, panic attacks – I’ve had those. Those are bad.”
However, that’s as far as he’ll go on the subject.
I’ve learned how to work the ‘H’ in ADHD to my benefit.
Will.i.am
Asking him when he suffered from depression elicits an: “I don’t like to talk about that kind of stuff. Some people, when they talk about it, they are induced. Just the idea of thinking about it can bring on [an episode]. I might go: [Shouts and waves his hands around] ‘Wah!’ [Long laugh] ‘He’s throwing bricks in here!’”
What is clear is that his early life gave Will a drive to succeed.
Aged 11, he started dreaming big and became determined to pull his family out of poverty.
He formed what was to become The Black Eyed Peas in 1992, when he was 17, alongside apl.de.ap, now 42, and another childhood friend, Taboo (Jaime Luis Gomez), 41, and in 2003 they recruited Fergie (Stacy Ferguson), 42.
Their first major hit came soon after, with Where Is The Love? featuring Justin Timberlake spending six weeks at No.1 in the UK.
They racked up four UK No.1 singles before going on a hiatus in 2011.
“I moved my mum out the ghetto when I was 23,” he smiles.
“That was always my dream. That’s your gasoline and electricity. Or else what are you doing it for? OK, you’re doing it to get rich – you’re getting rich for what? Just to have it? Then you’re going to be spending it on bulls**t and have a mouth riddled with gold. All of that’s cool, but it was never my thing.”
But Will’s generosity didn’t stop there.
“I moved my entire family out of the ghetto when I was 30. I had to make that happen. My aunties, uncles, brothers, my grandma… There was about 30 of us. I moved them all out.”
The star has a strong bond with his mum, who raised him alone and adopted four children – two girls and two boys – as well as having her own four.
“She was an anchor, but my mum’s mum was her anchor. My grandma was a dominant force in all of our lives. She was my date to the Grammys.”
He certainly doesn’t seem fussed about never knowing his father, maintenance worker William Adams Sr, who left before Will was born.
“My mum’s awesome. She’s like my dad, too. Every Father’s Day I say: ‘Happy Father’s Day, Mum.’ My uncle’s been like a dad. My ‘Duncle’.”
In a celebrity world full of temptation, these strong female role models taught Will to have respect for women.
“I’m very sensitive. I’m respectful but I’m a man still. I’m still a dude! But I’m not like [gruff voice]: ‘Hey girl!’ I don’t know how to be that way, even if I wanted to. A guy is never really a good boyfriend. A girl makes a guy a good boyfriend.”
While it’s clear Will’s main woman is his mum, his love life remains a bit of an enigma.
He’s previously spoken about an ex-girlfriend he dated for eight years and who inspired the band’s Top 10 hit Don’t Lie, and he has also been linked to Natalie Imbruglia and reality star Casey Batchelor.
And back in 2011 Will discovered what it was like to be in the company of one of the world’s most desirable women, when he was hired to manage the then Cheryl Cole.
The pair had formed a close friendship after she collaborated with him on his Top 10 solo single Heartbreaker in 2008 and later supported The Black Eyed Peas on tour.
He was brought in to launch her career Stateside, but instead found himself picking up the pieces when Simon Cowell fired her from The X Factor USA. By 2013, Cheryl had fired Will.
They were seen together less and less and their relationship appeared strained, with the star kept in the dark when Cheryl married Jean-Bernard Fernandez-Versini in 2014.
Tellingly, when asked if he’ll visit Cheryl – who is now with One Direction’s Liam Payne – now she’s given birth, he says: “I’ll see [the baby] on a magazine somewhere.”
As to whether they’re still best friends: “Er, I think when you’re close to somebody you’re always close, but I think we’re just… We’re gravitating to new things. Of course we’re still friends. I don’t know where she hangs out – she doesn’t hang out so much any more. I’m happy for her though. When’s her baby due?”
Creating a family is on Will’s wish list.
However, it’s a distant dream at the minute, with his time being taken up on i.am+, the tech company he founded in 2013, and roles on The Voice UK, The Voice Kids and the Apple reality TV series Planet of The Apps, alongside fellow entrepreneurs Jessica Alba and Gwyneth Paltrow.
I think when you’re close to somebody you’re always close, but I think we’re just… We’re gravitating to new things.
Will.i.am
“Right now, I’m just focusing on completing the dream. What do I want [when I’m aged] 50 to 60 to be like? How do I want to live 50 to 70? I wanna live and I want to be able to do whatever and make sure my kids’ kids don’t have anything to worry about.”
Through his i.am.angel foundation, Will is giving back and has raised over £400,000 in financial aid for college students in Boyle Heights.
In 2012, he also teamed up with The Prince’s Trust to give £500,000 to schemes with a focus on technology for disadvantaged youngsters.
This desire to give back has also meant Will has been inspired by his mum to adopt in the future.
“Yeah, that’s on the path. My best friend Apple was adopted. He was sponsored from five and brought to America [from the Philippines] when he was 14. I’m one of the first people he met and we’ve been friends ever since.”
Despite working with the likes of Britney Spears, Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga – and rumours of a fifth solo album and new Black Eyed Peas album in the pipeline, which he won’t address today – Will’s music career seems to be firmly on the back burner.
“I don’t really do music so much,” he shrugs.
“From 1995 to 2010, I made music six days a week, 9am-5pm; from 2010 to 2012, five days a week; 2012 to 2015, three days a week; 2015 to 2017, I make music one day a week. My dream is being an entrepreneur – that’s my new music. I have a groove and there are 150 people who work for that groove. It feels like I’m an adult, I go to work and have real problems to solve.”
So far he’s created a smart watch called Dial and foto.sosho, a fashion accessory/iPhone case that turns your phone into a high-powered camera with a built-in app to edit and share pictures quickly.
The seven times Grammy Award winner is going where the money is. And it’s paying off.
These days, Will lives in a nine-bedroom house in LA, set over three storeys complete with a studio and a Bentley in the drive.
“Music is not sustainable. Only the lucky ones can sustain it for the rest of their life. You have to switch gears.
“[With] an album you don’t make no money. Money is what pays for s**t and that’s how you take care of your family. I want to send more kids to college and help more folk in underserved communities.
“A lot of people think: ‘But Will, you’re rich.’ Yes, but eventually that’s going to go away. If you have desires of helping folks, unfortunately you need money. I’m not money-driven, I just want to make sure my energy is being put in places where there’s sustainability and I can live a cool, awesome, relaxed, creative, problem-solving life from 50 to 90.
“If I want to go to outer space, I want to be like: ‘Hey, let’s go!’ because by the time I’m 50, space travel should be normal. I want to do some crazy, wild s**t.”
If anyone will fulfil their space-travel dream, it’s sure to be someone as out of this world as will.i.am.
The Voice UK final is on ITV tonight. The Voice Kids follows on ITV later this year.