In a New York hotel room in 1976, Donna Summer stepped towards the window ledge. She had become instantly famous the previous year for her pseudo-orgasmic vocals on her single Love to Love You Baby, which had reached No 2 in the US and Top 10 across most of Europe. But, unknown to her fans, she was horribly conflicted over the sexualised performance, and also in the grip of a violently abusive relationship. She began climbing up.
“Another 10 seconds and I would have been gone,” she later said – but her foot became entangled in a curtain and at that moment a maid entered. “I felt God could never forgive me because I had failed him,” she explained. “I was decadent, I was stupid, I was a fool. I just decided that my life had no meaning.”
