Daniel Bedingfield has opened up about being stalked by someone who worked for his former phone provider.
The Kiwi singer, 44, who made his long anticipated return to the stage at a sold out London Palladium on Tuesday as part of his first UK live shows since 2005, turned his back on the limelight after tiring of the unwanted attention that came with it.
“It’s very exhausting being the subject of millions of people’s attention, and even if it’s nice attention, it’s a lot,” he told The Standard.
One fan didn’t appear to get the memo however and took their obsession for the Gotta Get Thru This hitmaker too far.
“There was one guy who worked for a telephone company that I was at, and every single time I changed my number he’d call me the next day breathing heavily until I changed my carrier,” Bedingfield recalled.
“He did that like five or six times.”
He added that “there’s no ability to track who did it”.
It wasn’t just Joe Bloggs that he had to watch out for, media intrusion was also a big issue for him. Two decades on, Bedingfield still has some trepidation about returning to music.
“I was deeply hurt over many years and I just thought how beautiful my life would be without that noise, so that’s what I did for many years,” he explained.
“I was very proud of Craig David for coming out and talking about it. I think he was the first celebrity that I know of that talked about it and he was vulnerable about it.”
Noting that the advent of social media added a new element to fame that he hadn’t experienced the first time around, he is grateful that he can “switch it off” with ease if he so wishes.
“I think the haters are more scarier, the stalkers are scarier, the trolls are scarier,” he mused.
“People who heard my music when they were six are now 26 and they just don’t faff about with that nonsense; they don’t, they’re not entertaining any negativity.
“There’s a new spirit I guess in the British people I’m picking up that is making me feel safer to come back out.”
